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There are a number of scenarios which confirms the assertion that leaders are
actually born and not made. One of the evidences is that leaders are noticed
when they are still very young. They are first recognized during childhood in
schoolyards. There are kids who are always ready to assume command while
still in school and leadership skills to them appears to be so effortless
(Waldman, Bernard & Walter 2009). These child-leaders are characterized by a
great desire for adventure and thinks very quickly whenever they are on the
field. They are always ready to take positions of responsibility such as
becoming class monitors. This is clear evidence that leaders are born with
leadership traits in them (Wagner 2009).
This belief is also supported by the Great Man’s theory which asserts that great
leaders are born with all the required internal features such as intelligence,
confidence, social skills and charisma and these features make them leaders
who are naturally born (Waldman 2009). Apart from the leadership traits
exhibited by children while they are still young, we have leaders whose
leadership skills were not learnt but they were born with these skills (Waldman
2009). Two examples of these leaders are Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston
Churchill. Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill are credited for being
the most outstanding British Prime ministers since World War II. These two
leaders who did not attend any school to learn leadership skills confirm the
assertion that leaders are actually born and not made (Seltzer & Bernard 2008).
Leaders can therefore be developed, but there should inborn characteristics that
make people to be more suited for leadership positions. Extraversion,
assertiveness, boldness and risk taking are all characteristics which increase the
effectiveness of a leader and which cannot be learnt (Conger 2009).
Additionally, intelligence is another factor that makes confirms the assertion
that leaders are actually born when compared to learnt leadership. In the
absence of intelligence, it is not possible to train effective leaders. Therefore, it
is only possible to train somebody to become an effective leader if he or she is
intelligent. Intelligence is a characteristic that is not attained through learning,
but born in a person. This intelligence is what makes a person to know what the
followers want and want they don’t want (Waldman 2009).
Leaders are born with leadership traits and training is only meant to improve
these leadership skills. This means that in order to make a good leader, a person
needs to be born with basic leadership traits. These basic traits are then
improved through experience or learning. It is therefore not possible to nurture a
great leader from scratch (Bennis & Joan 2008). From the theories discussed
above, it doesn’t mean that training is not important in leadership. It means that
training should only be used as a tool for improving traits born in would-be
leaders. Firstly, the leaders are born with these traits and then these traits are
improved further through raining and experiences. This is the reasoning behind
“Leaders are born and not made”
Pro:
1) On paper, it looks like a good movement as it gives women the courage to speak up
2) The original purpose was a phenomenal purpose. To stop men of power from
sexually assaulting the women below them.
Con:
1) It can destroy a mans life with one allegation. No proof needed.
2) No clear direction. Every woman is taking this movement in their own direction.
3) It can destroy a mans life with one allegation. No proof needed.
4) Women are using this movement as a "bargaining" chip to get what they want.
5) It can destroy a mans life with one allegation. No proof needed.
6) Women can turn a consensual sex act in the past into "rape" leaving the man to
say "That's not how I saw that evening" - it leaves the man looking like a deer caught
in headlights
7) It can destroy a mans life with one allegation. No proof needed.
8) This is an easy paycheck for any woman who claims #MeToo
9) It can destroy a mans life with one allegation. No proof needed.
10) When everything is considered rape, nothing will be considered rape - It seems
evertime a man does anything a woman considers "sexual"... it becomes a #MeToo
situation. Unfortunately ALL #MeToo situations are treated the same - man loses
everything he has worked so hard for.
Women say this is an all-gender movement, but whenever a man jumps on board,
they get dragged through the mud. This is without-a-doubt a very dangerous
woman's empowering movement.
Introduction
This essay will review how the rising fuel prices affect the different macroeconomic variables such as
inflation, rising production cost, unequal economic conditions between oil exporting and oil importing
nations. It will also examine the influence on airline industry, holiday companies, shipping industry and
rising unemployment rates because of the higher energy prices. There will also be a review on car
sales in India. This essay will also evaluate the rising demand for alternative energy sources. There
will also be review about the effect of increasing fuel on agriculture sector and their influence on
consumer behaviour.
Conclusion:
The oil prices are vital macroeconomic variable: higher oil prices might still lead to significant damage
on the economies of oil importing nations and on the world economy. Many nations face higher
inflation rates due to the rising oil prices in the world. As a consequence, the higher inflation rates
have devastating impact on both production and consumers that leads to big difference between oil
importing and oil exporting nations.
The fuel has become a scarce resource that force many countries to develop alternative energies to
maintain their economic activities without having any problem. It is obvious that, there is a strong
correlation between energy demand and economic prosperity. Development of millions of people
living standards depend on our existing energy infrastructure. To maintain economic progress on the
whole world, economic experts should reinvent the ways in which they create, distribute and utilise
energy.
To overcome this technological difficulty, experts should invest in invention in energy generation.
Even while people struggle to make breakthroughs in solar, wind, geothermal and related energy
sources, they should reinvent their traditional sources to utilise these sources more efficiently.
Alternative energies might contribute the economies to decrease their dependency on fuel as the key
energy source. Especially, oil importing countries extremely need to use other means of energy that
might contribute them to deal with big economic crisis. As a result, it will accelerate overall GDP
growth in the world which means that companies will be able to increase their production levels even
if oil prices continue to rise and it will lead to decrease in unemployment rates.
On Sept. 17, the Narendra Modi government announced plans to merge three public sector
banks: Mumbai-based Dena Bank, Bengaluru’s Vijaya Bank, and Bank of Baroda (BoB) that
has its head office in Vadodara, Gujarat. The merged entity, with total assets of over Rs14
lakh crore ($190 billion), will be India’s third-largest lender behind the State Bank of India
and HDFC Bank.
“The government had announced in the budget (for the financial year 2019) that
consolidating banks was on our agenda and the first step has been announced,” finance
minister Arun Jaitley said in New Delhi.
With this, the government has thrown a lifeline to Dena Bank, whose gross non-performing
assets (NPA) ratio in the quarter ended June 30, 2018, stood at 22%, among the industry’s
highest. It is already under the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) supervision; in May it
was barred from lending any further or recruiting new employees.
Vijaya Bank and BoB are in better shape. In the April-June quarter of financial year 2019,
Vijaya Bank posted a net profit of Rs144 crore, while BoB’s figure stood at Rs528 crore. In
this period, Dena Bank posted a net loss of Rs721 crore.
One of the reasons for choosing these three banks was that the two stronger ones will be able
to absorb the weaker entity, explained Jaitley.
“It (the merged bank) will be a strong competitive bank with economies of scale, network
synergies, low-cost deposits and subsidiaries, and the possibility of greater outreach and
expansion,” said Rajiv Kumar, the government’s financial services secretary.
The merger proposal will first have to be approved by the board of directors of the three
banks. Then the government will prepare a plan to be vetted by the union cabinet and both
houses of parliament. The process can take up to a year, said Asutosh Kumar Mishra, a
banking analyst with Reliance Securities.
Return on assets
0.29 0.32 -2.43 -0.02
(%)
Common equity
Tier-1 capital 9.27 10.35 8.15 9.32
(CET) (%)
Capital to risk
weighted assets 12.13 13.91 10.6 12.25
ratio (CRAR) (%)
After the merger, this is how the country’s top three banks will be positioned:
HDFC Amalgamated
Parameters SBI
Bank bank
20 7.08 6.4
Gross advances (Rs lakh
HDFC Amalgamated
Parameters SBI
Bank bank
crore)
Here’s a look at how the merged bank will stack up against the other government-owned
banks:
Bank Punjab
Amalgamated
Parameters SBI of National
bank
India Bank
Gross advances
6.4 19.9 3.63 4.53
(Rs lakh crore)
Return on assets
-0.02 -0.57 0.06 Negative
(%)
“These banks will have to compensate for the bad asset quality of Dena Bank and it is likely
they will be very unhappy with the move and this may also lead to some hiccups in the
merger process,” said Mishra of Reliance Securities.
Meanwhile, a similar plan may be in the pipeline for other struggling public lenders.
After all, by the end of March 2018, the sector’s gross NPAs had risen to 11.6% of total
assets from 10.2% in September 2017. NPAs are loans against which repayments have not
been made and there are chances of default. The situation is unlikely to ease any time soon—
in fact, it may worsen, the RBI has warned.
So mergers have been seen as a tool to tackle the problem. In 2017, India’s largest lender,
SBI, merged with five associate banks and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank to enter the league of
the world’s top 50. Recently, the government allowed state insurer Life Insurance
Corporation of India to take over IDBI Bank, the worst performer in terms of bad loans.
Three years earlier, in May 2015, many street signs in New Delhi carrying
Urdu/Muslim names including Aurangzeb Road, named after the sixth
Mughal emperor, were painted black by Shiv Sena Hindustan, a radical
Hindu organisation. Later in that year, the ruling BJP officially changed the
name of the Aurangzeb Road to A P J Abdul Kalam, a pro-BJP ex-president
of India.
In April 2016, the BJP government in Haryana renamed the city of Gurgaon
asGurugram, after Guru Dronacharya, an upper caste Hindu figure from
the epic Mahabharata, who is viewed as a villain by India's Dalits.
The city that was known as St Petersburg in imperial Russia was renamed
Petrograd in 1914 at the start of World War I because authorities thought
its original name sounded too German. In 1924, following the formation of
the USSR and the death of Lenin, the name of the city was changed once
again, this time to Leningrad. The city's name was reverted back to St
Petersburg in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
India also renamed several cities long before the BJP took power. In 1995,
it restored the names of the cities of Bombay, Bangalore, and Calcutta to
their indigenous versions - Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata respectively -
to emphasize its independence from Britain and reject the linguistic
symbols left over from the colonial era. The names of the cities Cawnpore
and Jubblepore were also changed to Kanpur and Jabalpur to reflect native
spelling and pronunciation.
READ MORE
The real reasoning behind their opposition to the road's name, however,
went a lot deeper than Aurangzeb's conduct. The RSS and the BJP perceive
not only Aurangzeb's rule but the entirety of the medieval Muslim era, as a
dark phase in the country's history. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi said India is troubled by "1200 years of slave mentality". He was
clearly lumping together the 200 years of British colonial rule and the
preceding medieval Muslim era as a long and undivided period of colonial
suffering.
Those who opposed the name change argued that Aurangzeb was not much
different from many other rulers of India, regardless of their religious
identity, who engaged in violent acts against their enemies to consolidate
power. They pointed out that while Aurangzeb destroyed some temples, he
simultaneously protected many others, demonstrating that his actions were
not driven by "cruelty" or a desire for religious oppression, but political
considerations.
Critics of the name change also pointed out that the Aurangzeb Road's sign
was not the only one vandalized by right-wing groups prior to the name
change. The street named after Muslim Mughal ruler Akber, who is
considered to be a liberal even by right-wing Hindus, was also vandalized.
This, they argued, clearly shows that the right-wing groups' problem is not
solely with Aurangzeb and his allegedly cruel legacy, but the entirety of
India's Muslim history.
This can also be seen in other acts of the RSS and the BJP.
For example in July 2017, RSS ideologue Dina Nath Batra sent a document
to the National Council for Educational Research and Training demanding
that some Urdu words and a couplet by the 19th century Urdu poet Ghalib
be removed from India's school textbooks. In a similar attack on Muslim
symbols, in 2016, some right-wing activists prevented artists from writing a
couplet in Urdu on the walls of the GT Road in Delhi as part of a non-
governmental "Delhi I Love You" campaign.
Hinduisation of India
The change of Gurgaon to Gurugram and the demand for the renaming of
Bareilly and Agra airports as Nath Nagri and Deendayal Upadhyaya
respectively may not be targeting Muslim symbols, but they are clear
attempts to increase the prominence of Hindu symbols in India.
For this reason, Dalit scholars saw in the name change an attempt by the
BJP to appease its more privileged caste voters at the cost of further
marginalizing Indians from less-privileged castes.
Claiming that the Mughal rule was colonial, as many Indians do, is not only
historically wrong - for it displays an incorrect understanding of
colonialism - but it is also divisive. As Irfan Ahmad argues, unlike the
British, the Mughals did not use the wealth of India to invest in the place
they came from; instead, they became an integral part of India's diverse
culture. Muslims are people of this country and not outsiders. They should
be treated as such.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do
not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
India after gaining independence from the British rule in 1947 found itself
deeply clutched with the memories of its former colonial rulers who made a
lot of changes in every sphere in order to diminish the identity of the nation
whether it was in the form of names or be it physically. In order to free itself
from the daunting memories of the colonial rule and to cherish a new identity
created by the sacrifice of the millions of people which got the people their
independence, India involved itself in a whole lot of series of action where
the name of the states or the cities were modified. These changes brought
out a sense of commonness and reminded the people of their freedom from
the British symbols and relics.
The process of changing the name of cities and states across India was
carried out in an irregular pattern. The demand for changing of the name
was brought to the notice of the Parliamentarians through violent protests or
through a mass campaign. Both ways were successful in gaining the
attention of the Legislators.
Indian Legislature laid down broad guidelines for renaming a state or a city.
To alter the name of a state or of a city, the central government and the
state government has to necessarily follow these guidelines so that the
process may be considered as democratically acceptable and it may
represent the will of the majority. But the decision so taken on the basis of
the view of the majority must not negate the vital role that the minorities
play in every democracy.
Standard Procedure
The process of changing the name of a state is entirely different from that of
a city. The process of changing the name of a state involves not only the
state but it affects the Centre as well. But changing of name of a city
involves only the state legislator. In our current discussion, we will deal with
the procedure that the Parliamentarians or the State Legislators follow in
order to change the name of a State or of a city.
The State Legislation on the basis of the majority view shall make the
necessary changes in the name of the state or city public. One example of
the renaming of a city is the renaming of the Aurangzeb Road in Lutyens’s
Delhi as Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road. the resolution was raised by BJP MPs
Meenakshi Lekhi and Maheish Girri and AAP’s trade wing secretary Vipin
Rohilla. The resolution was unanimously passed by the New Delhi Municipal
Council (NDMC).
Mughalsarai Junction Uttar Pradesh Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction 2018
There are hundreds of such instances where the name of the city or the
street has been changed by the State Legislation. Each state follows its own
legislation in order to rename a particular city or street within its jurisdiction.
A state assembly is not entitled to change the name of those streets or cities
which do not fall within their jurisdiction. Any violation of the jurisdiction by
an assembly will lead to the law being declared invalid or void.
One of the most cumbersome task for the Parliament is the procedure that
needs to be followed in order to rename a state. The Constitution of India
provides for the renaming of a state under Article 3 and Article 4.
After the approval of the said bill, the bill becomes a law and the name of the
state stands modified.
There were a large number of changes made in the names of the states in
India with the enactment of the Constitution of India. Considering the fact
that the Constitution came into force from 26th January 1950, the states re-
emerged from the colonial rule into the new post-constitution era by such
enactment. In the colonial period, India was divided into princely states
(governed by local bodies) and provinces (governed directly by British
officials). The states were given new identity by the Constitution of India
through the First Schedule. The First Schedule contains the list of all the
states and union territories and their territorial extent. The re-emergence of
states brought an end to the old provinces and princely states and these new
states were created by the State Reorganisation Act, 1956. The states were
formed on the basis of language. For e.g.: Travancore-Cochin was renamed
as Kerala in the year 1956. Thus, most of the states were renamed after the
enactment of the Constitution in the year 1950. There is no need of an
amendment as under Article 368 of the Constitution of India for renaming a
particular state or union territory or a city or a street. A normal legislation
which falls within the meaning of Article 13 will suffice the need of renaming
a state or a city.
There are still many proposals for the renaming of states and cities which are
pending before the Parliament and the state assemblies of the respective
states. Some such pending proposals are:
Existing Name Suggested New Name
Kerala Keralam
Allahabad Prayagraj
Bhopal Bhojpal
NOTE – The State used in the above discussion also includes Union
Territories.
Conclusion
States are the territorial division of a nation’s land. In India, the states are
formed on the basis of a law made by the Parliament and the Parliament is
vested with the power of renaming such states. There is no need for an
amendment to rename a state. The state here also includes Union
Territories. The same changes must be made in the First Schedule of the
Constitution. The state is further divided into cities and streets. The work of
renaming the cities vests with the state assembly. President plays a very
vital role in the regulation of activities of the Parliament and the state
assembly for the purpose of the renaming of a state or a city.
In November 2012, a tigress and her two cubs began a journey from their home
in the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, Uttar Pradesh. She had somewhat
uncharacteristically left the forest. Over the next two years, this tigress is
recorded to have travelled 260 km — from the Amariya region in Pilibhit, along
the Devha river, crisscrossing through the densely populated village areas of
Gularia Bithra, Khali Nawada, Bishanpur, Surajpur, Bhadsara, Dhaki, all the way
up to Kanpur, where she was finally sighted in February 2014. A close-knit team
comprising officials of the Uttar Pradesh forest department and tiger conservators
of WWF-India were on the trail of this feline family.
The sketchy story from their sightings, pugmark tracking and camera-trap images
unraveled that she was accompanied by her cubs for part of the journey,
negotiating past villages, through sugarcane fields and grassy landscapes. On
several occasions, she would enter the forest for short durations, only to return to
her new habitat. The team speculated whether she had moved out of the forest to
protect her cubs from aggressive males. Months later, in September 2014, they
also spotted her cubs, now sub-adults, back in Amariya, apparently living and
operating independently. Not a single incident of attack on humans or livestock
was recorded through this epic journey of this majestic feline and her cubs.
India leads the world in tiger conservation efforts, with a record 2,226 animals
declared in the 2014 National Tiger Conservation Authority census. On the other
hand, the country is also projected to exceed a human population of 1.5 billion by
2030. To ensure that these two populations thrive with minimal stress, improved
understanding and effective management of human-tiger conflict is necessary.
An aerial view of the forests in which Avni was shot. Photo by Sunil Limaye.
Knowing the human-tiger interface
According to Dr. Pranav Chanchani, coordinator, Tiger Conservation
Programme, WWF-India, conflicts are unpredictable. “It will be impossible to avert
conflicts altogether, just as it is impossible to avert all road accidents, even if we
understand all the factors that cause them. But understanding its drivers and
building and implementing cohesive and preemptive response mechanisms, can
help save human and tiger lives.” He said that such efforts will also help
immediate response, in which ‘livestock depredation,’ or loss of life, is addressed
within a short span of time.
A street protest against the killing of Avni. Photo from the Facebook page of Avni the
Tigress.
Community awareness
Considering the case of the Pilibhit tigress, who safely navigated through heavily
human-inhabited villages for two years without any casualties, the WWF-India
expert pointed out that awareness-generation programmes carried out in
communities in the vicinity played a major role. While monitoring the tigress
between 2012 and 2014, the team had held a series of meeting with villagers to
help them better understand how to deal with a tiger in their midst. Such was the
awareness, that the community had not just learnt of safety measures to keep
away from the tigress but had also grown supportive of the conflict-management
efforts, and would often help monitor the animal. Many even expressed gratitude
at having a tiger family in their field, since it discouraged herbivores like wild
boars from damaging their crops.
Usually, in areas where tigers and humans extensively share space, conflict is
common. Unfortunately, the potential for rumors to spread is also high.
Chanchani said that misinformation and misperception have the potential to
exacerbate conflict. “Rumors about the purported presence of an animal
sometimes spread, creating panic and public ire. Misinformation fuels public
anger, which disrupts law and order and can lead to the lynching of animals
blamed for conflict. Awareness building can play a big role in reducing the risks
people face from large carnivores and in managing conflict more effectively.”
Limaye stated that conflict management and awareness building have been
initiated in the Yavatmal region, “however it is a long process and it will take
some time to educate the local communities”.
Why Avni?
Did Avni truly turn rogue and kill people since 2016? Even as news reports on her
post-mortem reveal that she had not eaten anything for at least a week, Dr.
Jimmy Borah, tiger biologist and consultant at Panthera, an international
organisation working on the conservation of wild cats, said, “A nursing tigress
would probably only attack human beings for self-defense, if she feels her cubs
are threatened. It is highly unlikely that she would choose humans as food for her
cubs.”
Highlighting the apathy in the investigation process, Borah said, “Tigers are very
intelligent animals. They might target easy prey, like livestock and humans, if they
are injured or old and weak. A healthy animal would never target humans. If the
concerned tigress was suspected of killing 13 people since 2016, it should have
been investigated much earlier, given the advancement in forensic tests and
methods today.”
He said that to safeguard the human population and in the larger interest of
saving a wildlife species, it becomes imperative to “remove problem animals”
sometimes. “Doing so will help in generating larger public support, especially
from communities living in the fringes of protected areas and depending on the
forests for their livelihood. However, identifying a problem animal is a herculean
task that involves strong evidence, including forensics.” He stated that if an
animal is identified as a problem, the best forest departments and states can do
is to ensure that standard protocols and guidelines are followed closely.
On Avni’s orphaned cubs, Borah says: “The best option is to leave them alone. If
they have learnt to hunt (other animals), they might probably do well. ‘Rescuing’
them would be pointless.”
In the meanwhile, Limaye said that the forest department’s ongoing efforts to
rescue the cubs and release them in another forest. “These 10- to 11-month-old
cubs may or may not be ready to hunt yet and we are concerned they might have
learnt to attack humans by watching their mother. We might endanger their, and
human, lives if we don’t remove them from this location. We are considering
releasing them in Pench in Madhya Pradesh, but this will be decided by a
committee once the cubs are captured.”
It is shocking that such a drastic step was taken by the forest officials.
Killing T-1, aka Avni, a six-year old tigress, was brutal and un-necessary.
We need to understand that humans are not a natural prey of tigers. Tigers
may kill humans either in self- defence or because of old age. Moreover,
we encroach upon the habitat of animals and then kill animals saying they
have become man-eaters. In the 21st century where we are so proud of our
medical and technical knowledge, can’t we come up with a more humane
solution that shooting dead an animal? Killing of Avni does not set a good
precedence. It is high time that our community learns to co-exist with
wildlife. We need to come up with long-term plans. Couldn’t Avni have
been relocated with her cubs? Killing was definitely not the solution.
Hema Chari
Learn from people who live in harmony with wildlife for generations
I am disgusted to say the least with what happened to tigress Avni. We
don’t have a knowledgeable minister occupying a seat. We have a minister
because he got a portfolio. Sadly, his so-called advisors have no interest in
wildlife either. It pains me to see that basic protocol wasn’t followed.
While the hunter who was permitted to tranquilise the animal was present,
his son killed the tigress. Why did no one tranquilised her instead? From
villagers’ perspective, having a supposed man-eater prowling around is
scary, but these villages have for years lived around wildlife and they are
better equipped in their sensibilities to deal with such animals. And if
those in power say that they did it to save other tigers because if they
hadn’t, the villagers would have poisoned them (other tigers) or hunted her
(Avni) illegally; well, they failed, because at the end of the day, another
tiger was murdered by humans. On the ground level, how many villages
were actually consulted and on what basis was she identified as the man-
eater is all very doubtful as per the media reports. We need to ensure that
forest and grasslands, animal migration routes and the zones connecting
forests are protected with no human activity, interference in the form of
mining, holiday zones, etc. We should actually learn from people living in
forest areas and fringe forest areas how they have for generations dealt
with animals in peace, but as a country we prefer to turn away from our
traditions. With the mother tigress now dead, its cubs are now more
vulnerable. Thus the action in a way put another generation of tigers in
danger.
Uma Karve
Manoj Oswal
Devika Deshpande
Sanjay Deshpande
Animals consider humans as unwanted pests in forests
I am completely against the use of forest land or harming animals for our
benefits. It is unfortunate that we killed an animal for staying in its own
space. We as humans think superior of ourselves and this is a sad and
terrible thing. The best way to handle the man-animal conflict is to not to
encroach upon the latter’s spaces. We can’t keep utilising their spaces and
expect them to be okay with it. If you don’t like unwanted pests in your
house, the same applies to them too. We need to live in harmony, much
like the way this world was built.
8.destination wedding
Despite the challenges, we instinctively knew that we wanted to get married abroad.
We looked into Hawaii (some islands have a 10 p.m. curfew) and Mexico (bloodwork
is required in order to obtain a marriage license). We even thought about eloping to
Paris—what's more romantic than The City of Lights? But when we found out
couples must live in the city for a minimum of 40 days in order to legally get married
there, this lovely idea quickly turned into a headache. We finally settled on Italy;
although they require a civil ceremony prior to any religious or symbolic blessing, we
think it's charming to have a separate ceremony to celebrate privately.
Photo Credit: One and Only Paris [Photography] via Intimate Weddings
2. A destination wedding may not necessarily be cheaper than nuptials held stateside.
The change in currency from the dollar to the euro sent our bank account into a
black hole. Before you book, factor in costs like additional transportation and
wedding weekend activities, not just hotels and airfare. Read the fine print on all of
your contracts for any hidden fees.
Some of our wedding guests thought we were selfish to choose a wedding location
in another country with requirements for vacation leaves, extra expenses, and
logistical concerns. I thought that their opinions were completely warranted, and I
tried to respect them. If you find yourself getting stressed out by what everyone else
thinks, don't lose your sanity over it; know your vision and stay true to it. For loved
ones who can come, be considerate of their needs by having a welcome bag waiting
for them in their hotel room. Fill it with small treats like a map, munchies, and travel
guides. Your guests may experience jet-lag, so plan your welcome party and any
other celebrations accordingly.
I'd recommend investing not only in a wedding coordinator abroad, but also hiring
someone who can help you out locally. Go into the relationship with the
understanding that there may be some misunderstandings due to the language
barrier or cultural differences in wedding planning.
Planning this crazy, chaotic journey in a foreign country has been, without a doubt,
the best experience my fiancé and I have had since getting engaged. Destination
weddings are about intimate gatherings, romance, and, most importantly, relaxation.
Although the road hasn't always been easy, the tough parts can't compare to the joy
of celebrating our wedding in the land of amore.
HIGHLIGHTS
Last week, report submitted to parliamentary panel admitted note ban impacted farmers adversely
The ministry of agriculture has taken a U-turn on its assessment of the impact of
demonetisation on the agriculture sector presented to a parliamentary panel last week.
Exactly one week ago, the ministry, according to sources, had blamed the demonetisation
announced by Prime Narendra Minister Modi for millions of farmers in India failing to buy
seeds and fertilisers for their winter crops in a report submitted to the Parliamentary Standing
Committee on Finance.
The members of the committee belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had protested
against the report, claiming that the report was "not proper" as it "wasn't duly endorsed by the
agriculture secretary". The committee is led by Congress leader M Veerappa Moily.
The report was instantly "hailed" as the "official acknowledgement of the adverse impact
of note ban on the millions in the agriculture sector" by Moily on Twitter.
READ| Demonetisation hit farmers badly, agriculture ministry takes 2 years to admit
But now, the ministry is set to submit a fresh report in the meeting of the standing committee
on Tuesday in which the RBI governor will be deposing.
India Today TV has accessed the draft of the report which the ministry will present before the
standing committee. The note titled "Background Note for Examination of the Subject
'Demonetisation of Indian Currency Notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and Ramifications
thereof'", in its conclusion, says: "There has been an encouraging growth witnessed inflow of
agriculture credit, distribution of quality/certified seeds, coverage of major Rabi crops and
crop production in comparison to previous years. This indicates that the measures taken by
the government ensured no adverse impact [of demonetisation] on the agriculture
sector."
It further says demonetisation "brought more formalisation in the agriculture sector" and
it was"beneficial to farmers".
OLD REPORT VS NEW REPORT
The conclusion is in stark contrast to the earlier note submitted by the same ministry. The
earlier note had indicated that "demonetisation came at a time when farmers were in the midst
of selling their Kharif crops and sowing the Rabi crops. Demonetisation removed cash from
the market while the sale and sowing operations needed huge amounts of it."
READ| Demonetisation highly ethical move, not political: Arun Jaitley
Members of the opposition in the committee told India Today TV that the first note had said
that "millions of farmers, unable to get cash, couldn't buy seeds and fertilisers for their
winter crops. Landowners failed to pay daily wages or purchase what they needed for
crops."
The report indicated that despite delayed relaxation announced by the government in form of
allowing the use of banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for purchase of wheat seeds, the
National Seeds Corporation's (NSC) sale of wheat seeds fell short by nearly 1.3 lakh quintals.
READ| Report showing higher GDP growth during Manmohan era removed
from govt website
Sources say that the report generated tremendous heat in the standing committee meeting last
week and its irate members refused to listen to the team of agriculture ministry officials as the
secretary of the ministry did not show up to make a presentation in the meet.
The ministry used the one-week period to remove the bits that criticised the note ban exercise
and had caused embarrassment to the government. The report now says:
The Central government in consultations with state governments undertook steps to ensure
agriculture sector remains unaffected, grows with desired pace and farmers are able to obtain
necessary inputs like credit, seeds and fertiliser.
There was no impact of demonetisation on seeds sold, area covered by agriculture and crop
production.
Agricultural performance -- the total area under cultivation in 2015-16 (pre-note ban year)
was 612.28 lakh hectares. In 2016-17, it was 635.29 lakh hectare and 628.25 lakh hectare in
2017-18.
Total crop production -- in 2015-16 was 1264.5 lakh tonnes. In 2016-17, 1367.75 lakh tonnes
and 1441.12 lakh tonnes in 2017-18.
The sale of wheat seeds was not impacted by note ban as farmers allowed to pay using Rs
500 and Rs 1,000 banned notes with proof of identity. Wheat seed sale in 2015-16 was 95.63
lakh quintals. In 2016-17, 124.87 lakh quintal and 139.30 lakh quintal in 2017-18.
There was no impact of demonetisation on arrival of paddy, cotton, onion and soya to
markets between September and December 2016.
No impact of demonetisation on crop prices.
Paddy and cotton prices in September-December 2016 were similar to the previous year.
Both crops remained under MSP and payments were made digitally. Onion and soybean
prices subdued due to higher production and arrival in markets.
Fertilisers provided on credit to farmers, all modes of payment (credit/debit cards/cheques)
accepted. Fertiliser suppliers asked to extend the credit period by a month.
No impact on cash availability. Farmers were allowed to withdraw Rs 25,000 per week from
KYC compliant accounts. Farmers receiving payments through cheque/RTGS allowed
transaction of Rs 25,000 per week. Traders allowed Rs 50,000 per week to pay wages and
loading-unloading charges.
Loan repayment terms relaxed post note ban. Prompt payment incentivised at 3 per cent.
Interest waiver of 2 months. A special line of credit through Kisan credit cards.
With this, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, whose handling of the sector which
directly and indirectly employs crores in the country, has tried to undo the damage his
ministry's earlier note submitted to the standing committee had done.
On Friday, Singh, facing fire over the "candid admission" which seriously punctured the
government's "zero impact of note ban" claim, had tried course correction by rubbishing
reports that demonetisation prevented farmers from purchasing seeds.
He said, "There was no ban on the use of scrapped currency to buy seeds. Statistics show that
purchase of seeds increased after demonetisation, compared to the previous year."
Opposition members in the standing committee are, on their part, planning to target the
agriculture ministry for completely altering its assessment of the impact of demonetisation.
They plan to reject the report like the BJP MPs had done to the original note.
HIGHLIGHTS
Agriculture ministry submitted a report on effects of demonetisation to a parliamentary
committee
Millions of farmers weren't able to purchase seeds, fertilisers for sowing in rabi season
The report said that government seeds too, could not be sold at the time of note ban
Two years after demonetisation, the Union agriculture ministry has admitted that the farmers
were badly hit by the note ban. Demonetisation had made 86 per cent of existing currency (in
denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000) illegal tender. The farmers, particularly the smaller
ones, depend on cash for the purchase of seeds and fertilisers.
The Narendra Modi government has maintained that demonetisation was a necessary step to
curb black money and a successful exercise. It has defended demonetistion in the face of
criticism by the Opposition who said that the farmers and smaller business entities were the
worst affected.
Now, the Union agriculture ministry has admitted in a report that the note ban badly affected
the farmers. In a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry
of Agriculture acknowledged that due to the lack of cash, millions of farmers were unable to
purchase seeds and fertilisers ahead of the rabi season.
The agriculture ministry informed the committee that when demonetisation was
implemented, the farmers were either selling their kharif yield or sowing rabi crops.
Demonetisation rendered all the cash they had in hand useless. This drastically affected the
farmers, said the agriculture ministry report, which discusses the effects of demonetisation.
Even government seeds could not be sold, the report said further. Demonetisation also
affected big farmers as they had to pay wages to the labourers working on their fields. But
they went cash-strapped after demonetisation, the agriculture ministry report said.
The ministry said that due to the shortage of cash, about 1.38 lakh quintals of wheat seeds of
the national seed corporation were not sold.
The government had later allowed the use of old notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 for the
purchase of wheat seeds. But this relaxation did not improve the situation much.
However, the labour ministry, in its report to the committee, commended the demonetisation
saying that the move saw an increase in employment data in the subsequent quarters.
In the standing committee meeting, the Opposition MPs criticised demonetisation and
demanded that the government should provide data on the loss of employment in the micro,
small and medium enterprises. The committee has 31 members including Congress stalwarts
Veerappa Moily and Manmohan Singh.
Nine-year-old Neil suffers from asthma. When he is sick – with wheezing, breathing problems or
sleeplessness – he misses many of his favourite activities.
“He’d like to be out playing more, doing the things children love,” says his mother, lawyer Leena
Menghaney, who also has asthma. “Some months he misses as much as seven or eight days of school.”
The Menghaney family lives in the middle-class neighbourhood of Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, a city of 2.3
million inhabitants that flanks the Indian capital of Delhi.
Air pollution is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (umbrella
term for several progressive lung diseases including emphysema) and lung cancer, and increases the risks for
acute respiratory infections and exacerbates asthma.
With the economy booming in many of India’s cities since the turn of this century the number of road
vehicles and dusty construction sites have multiplied, and outdoor air pollution has become a major health
hazard and a major killer.
This adds to the already large burden of ill-health caused by household air pollution from the use of solid
fuels for cooking in the world’s second most populous country of some 1.3 billion people.
In India, an estimated 1.5 million people died from the effects of air pollution in 2012, according to WHO
data. Globally, air pollution – both indoor and outdoor – caused nearly 7 million deaths, or 11.6% of deaths
in 2012, making it the world’s largest single environmental health risk, according to World health statistics
2016.
About 98% of cities in low- and middle-income countries with more than 100 000 inhabitants do not meet
norms set out in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) air quality guidelines, according to WHO’s global
urban air quality database.
An increasing number of Indian cities are now measuring and reporting their air pollution levels to WHO
and the number of such cities, globally, has nearly doubled to 3000 in 103 countries since 2014.
Reducing the deaths and ill-health from air pollution is one of the targets of sustainable development goal
three and, last year at the United Nations climate change conference in Paris, governments recognized the
need to curb emissions to reduce global warming.
The sources of India’s air pollution are many: indoor cook stoves, road traffic – including the ubiquitous
auto-rickshaws that use a toxic mix of kerosene and diesel – industrial plants that burn fossil fuels and open
burning of waste.
“We see the acute effects of air pollution, especially in young children and the elderly, and in people
suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease,” says Dr Randeep Guleria, head of
the Department of Pulmonology and Sleep Disorders at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a set of lung diseases that prevent normal breathing and can,
eventually, be fatal.
“Exposure to high levels of pollutants affects lung capacity and predisposes children to respiratory problems
in later life,” Guleria says, adding: “When the air pollution levels go up, the patients’ underlying disease
worsens, and emergency visits to hospital and the need for medication go up dramatically too.”
Last year, the Steering Committee on Air Pollution and Health-Related Issues, set up by India’s federal
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, submitted a report to the federal government on the devastating
effects of air pollution on people’s health in India.
It proposed measures that committee members argued would provide the largest reduction in exposure to air
pollution and, as a result, improvements in people’s health.
For K Srinath Reddy, who co-chaired the committee, the report is important because it highlights the
contribution of air pollution to the rise in cardiovascular diseases in his country.
“It was the first time that an official report in India examined air pollution as a health rather than an
environmental issue,” says Reddy, who is also the president of the Public Health Foundation of India.
Since the sources of air pollution were so diverse, the committee proposed “a concerted and coordinated
effort across the government” with the involvement of a dozen other ministries, including finance,
agriculture, rural development, power and transport.
Proposals included switching to clean energy sources for cook stoves, public transport and industry, as well
as measures to reduce road traffic by raising fuel taxes and parking fees, levying congestion charges, and
creating vehicle-free zones and cycle paths.
“The tragedy is that there are perfectly feasible solutions to the air pollution problem, but these are
surrounded by myths,” says Veerabhadran Ramanathan, professor of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences at
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
For example the myth that tackling air pollution is expensive. “In California we found that if you clean up
the air, each dollar invested in air pollution returned nearly US$ 30 to [the state of] California.
“There were huge health benefits along with a large increase in new jobs and thus in people’s well-being,”
Ramanathan says.
In 2013, Ramanathan teamed up with the Air Resources Board, the clean air agency in California, and the
Energy and Resources Institute, an Indian research agency, to initiate the India–California Air Pollution
Mitigation Program.
Open burning in a street in Mumbai, India.
WHO /Diego Rodriguez
They compiled a report and issued 12 recommendations on how to reduce air pollution from the
transportation sector in India. The findings called for a systematic approach across the country.
“You can’t tackle air pollution by just cleaning up locally. Delhi is a perfect example: switching to
compressed natural gas vehicles helped temporarily in the 1990s, but Delhi still ranks among the world’s
most polluted cities, just like Los Angeles in the 1960s,” Ramanathan says.
For Ramanathan, three systematic solutions are required for maximum impact. One, replace existing cook
stoves with clean cook stoves, two, reduce pollution from diesel transport and, three, restrict open burning of
biomass and fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, liquid petroleum gas and electricity, along with biogas and ethanol are some of the clean energy
alternatives.
“India could cut its total air pollution by one third overnight by giving clean cooking stoves to all its
villagers,” Ramanathan says. “When California wanted to pass its air pollution laws, there was tremendous
resistance from industry.
“They said ‘it will destroy our economy, no one will come to California’, and the then president of the
United States [of America] Lyndon B Johnson had to give California special permission to enact stricter
laws than the rest of the country through congressional approval,” he says.
“When trucks from outside California came to California, they had to abide by California’s laws. Everything
I see in Delhi today happened in California in the 1960s.
“That is why we – in the India–California Air Pollution Mitigation Program – looked at both the technical
solutions, such as cleaning up your cars, and also structural solutions such as having proper regulatory
bodies and proper monitoring,” Ramanathan says.
Perhaps India's capital city has the advantage of having many nongovernmental organizations (NGO)
campaigning for better health, a vocal media which reports extensively on health problems caused by air
pollution, and a supreme court that recently banned the registration of diesel vehicles in the capital.
More has been done in Delhi than elsewhere in India to tackle the problem. The auto-rickshaws run on
compressed natural gas and, earlier this year, the state government piloted a congestion scheme to reduce the
volume of traffic, in which vehicles with odd and even number plates could enter the city on alternate days.
Other recent measures in the capital include tighter vehicle emissions’ norms, higher penalties for burning
rubbish and better control of road dust.
But while Delhi’s air quality has improved slightly, according to the WHO air quality database, air quality
levels in smaller cities, such as Ghaziabad, where the Menghaney family live, have severely deteriorated in
recent years, according to Indian NGO, the Centre for Science and Environment.
Public health advocates and clean air campaigners are keen to see action beyond Delhi.
Recently the Indian government took some steps in this direction committing to a 50% reduction in
households using solid fuel for cooking and, last December, removing subsidies for polluting cooking gas to
improve access to clean fuel for household cooking.
India recently included an additional target on reducing air pollution to the nine targets set out in
WHO’s Global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs 2013–2020 in its national NCDs
strategy.
For Dr Kalpana Balakrishnan who heads the WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational and
Environmental Health at the Center for Advanced Research on Environmental Health in Chennai, such
moves are thanks to a growing recognition of the double burden of outdoor and household air pollution for
urban and rural populations.
“Recent efforts are an important first step in this direction,” says Balakrishnan.
NAGPUR: Every year in India, around 26.45% premature deaths ..
India's central bank governor Urjit Patel has resigned from his post citing "personal reasons".
His resignation comes amid reports of a rift between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's government.
This marks a rare case of a serving governor leaving his job midway through his three-year term.
Correspondents say the move is likely to undermine confidence in the economy and cause the rupee to fall.
Although India's $2.6tn (€2.3tn; £2tn) economy has recently been boosted by a strong performance in
consumer spending and manufacturing, the rupee has already fallen significantly against the surging dollar
so far this year, private investment remains slack and there are doubts on whether the economy will
accelerate further, says the BBC's Soutik Biswas in Delhi.
India will vote in a general election in the first half of next year, with polls due by May.
Why is India at war with its central bank?
In a statement announcing his resignation, Mr Patel thanked his staff and officers, calling them the reason
for the "bank's considerable accomplishments in recent years".
But speculation has been mounting for weeks that Mr Patel could resign over government pressure on the
bank.
ADVERTISEMENT
RBI v Modi
In late October, RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya fired what appeared to be a broadside against
attempts to undermine the bank's independence.
"Governments that do not respect central bank independence will sooner or later incur the wrath of the
financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined an important regulatory
institution," he said.
The government reportedly wants the RBI to allow ailing state-owned banks, groaning under bad loans to
industries, to resume lending to small businesses. It also wants the regulator to lower interest rates to inject
much-needed liquidity into the economy.
Reports say the government also wants to access the RBI's surplus reserves in a bid to stimulate the
economy with a big public spending spree to woo voters before the elections.
"The timing just before this week's board meeting suggests that there's still a huge gap between the
government and RBI positions on key issues," A. Prasanna, the head of research at ICICI Securities
Primary Dealership in Mumbai, told Reuters news agency.
"Markets will now hope that the government has a plan of action ready so as to restore calm."
'Statement of protest'
Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have issued statements voicing appreciation for
Mr Patel's work.
Mr Modi tweeted that Mr Patel left behind a "great legacy" while Mr Jaitley described a "deep sense of
appreciation" for him.
A former governor of the RBI, Raghuram Rajan, said that Mr Patel's resignation should be seen as a
statement of protest. Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said "the resignation is a clear sign of the
government trying to interfere with the working of the RBI".
Curious timing
Analysis by Sameer Hashmi, India business reporter
For nearly two months there had been strong speculation that Mr Patel was to step down as the 24th
governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
Last week I attended a press conference where Mr Patel was asked about the tension between the
government and the RBI. He refused to comment - indicating that all was not well despite reports in recent
weeks that an uneasy truce had been reached.
Mr Patel's resignation has resurrected concerns raised by various observers that the Indian government is
trying to undermine the central bank's autonomy; a charge that the former has denied.
Interestingly, the resignation comes just four days before an RBI board meeting at which some contentious
issues were supposed to be discussed. The board has many government-appointed members who have been
putting pressure on RBI management to agree to some of the administration's demands.
Mr Patel's move will also make investors jittery - especially as it comes at a time when India's economic
growth is slowing.
First, how badly will this affect India’s markets tomorrow? Secondly, who
will take over the job of central bank governor in the interim?
And lastly, what will happen in the next RBI board meeting and what will
this mean for the issues that served as a bone of contention between the
central bank and the Modi government?
Other money market experts expect that tomorrow will see a shake-up.
“It would be pretty rocky. The rupee has already fallen 72.50 in the non-
deliverable market. My sense is that there is no real operational
fundamental change. This is really a reflection on the politics. Usually,
political instability is overplayed. But it looks pretty grim right now, no
way of knowing what’s going to happen.”
Therefore, it’s not clear if the Centre has a clear replacement for Patel in
mind at the moment.
Most former central bank officials The Wire spoke to indicated that in this
case, the Modi government would have to appoint an official to take over
in the interim before it appoints a new governor. According to the RBI Act,
1934, if the “governor or a deputy governor by infirmity or otherwise is
rendered incapable of executing his duties or is absent on leave or
otherwise in circumstances not involving the vacation of his appointment,
the Central government may, after consideration of the recommendations
made by the Central Board in this behalf, appoint another person to
officiate for him…”
Also read: Explained: The Widening Rift Between the RBI and the Modi
Government
The only thing the law says about this interim appointment is that it could
include an officer or employee of the RBI.
It’s possible that the interim governor will come from the central bank’s
four deputy governors (N.S. Vishwanathan, Viral Acharya, B.P. Kanungo
and M.K. Jain) or any of its 12 executive directors.
“The Centre always has a plan B in place,” said Pronob Sen, former chief
statistician, in remarks made to Bloomberg.
“There is a backup system. The question is, will the backup system be
allowed to play its role? If someone is appointed within a week, the fear
will be that this person had already been identified. And therefore the
appointment will be seen as political. And that may turn out to be more
damaging than the resignation itself,” Sen added.
On remaining contentious issues
Patel’s resignation comes four days before the central next board meeting
(December 14). As The Wire reported two weeks ago, this meeting was
also expected to play host to a showdown between the RBI’s management
and the board’s government nominees.
It’s unclear whether the board meeting will take place now on December
14, although it is still a possibility if the government quickly appoints an
interim replacement over the next two days.
The central bank and the Modi government disagree vehemently over five
major issues, some of which were resolved at the last board meeting and
some of which remain an elephant in the room. These include:
At the last meeting, the central bank’s board decided to constitute an expert
committee to examine the issue, so this has been put on the back-burner for
now.
This debate was over the controversial prompt corrective action (PCA)
norms, a set of restrictive rules that are applied to unhealthy or weak banks.
The Modi government wanted these norms eased to boost lending and
growth, but the RBI felt that it wouldn’t be prudent to do so.
At the last board meeting, this was kicked down the road, with both parties
agreeing that the matter would be examined by the a RBI sub-committee,
the board for financial supervision (BFS).
On this, the RBI gave in slightly at the last board meeting, when it agreed
to relax in part an international capital norm for banks.
4) Helping SMBs and NBFCs
This has been a mixed bag, with the RBI’s board advising that the central
bank consider a “scheme for restructuring of stressed standard assets of
MSME borrowers with aggregate credit facilities of up to Rs 250 million”.
However, there’s been no further movement on this. And the RBI also
hasn’t given to the Centre’s other demand, that it ease liquidity conditions
for the non-banking finance sector (NBFC). The NBFC industry has
reportedly faced liquidity issues since the near-collapse of IL&FS.
5) Governance shake-up
In the run-up to the last board meeting, media reports noted that the Modi
government wanted the central bank to set up sub-committees, which could
include government nominees that would focus on different aspects of the
RBI’s functioning.
Out of these five issues, at least four of them, barring capital norms for
banks, are still up for debate and discussion. With Urjit Patel’s resignation,
it’s unclear how much the Modi government will continue to push and
what Patel’s successor plans on doing to push back
HIGHLIGHTS
Urjit Patel said he resigned because of personal reasons
What is genetic
modification (GM) of
crops and how is it
done?
DNA sequencing results
Genetically modified (GM) plants: questions and answers
GM is a technology that involves inserting DNA into the genome of an organism. To produce
a GM plant, new DNA is transferred into plant cells. Usually, the cells are then grown in
tissue culture where they develop into plants. The seeds produced by these plants will inherit
the new DNA.
The characteristics of all living organisms are determined by their genetic makeup and its
interaction with the environment. The genetic makeup of an organism is its genome, which in
all plants and animals is made of DNA. The genome contains genes, regions of DNA that
usually carry the instructions for making proteins. It is these proteins that give the plant its
characteristics. For example, the colour of flowers is determined by genes that carry the
instructions for making proteins involved in producing the pigments that colour petals.
Genetic modification of plants involves adding a specific stretch of DNA into the plant’s
genome, giving it new or different characteristics. This could include changing the way the
plant grows, or making it resistant to a particular disease. The new DNA becomes part of the
GM plant’s genome which the seeds produced by these plants will contain.
The first stage in making a GM plant requires transfer of DNA into a plant cell. One of the
methods used to transfer DNA is to coat the surface of small metal particles with the relevant
DNA fragment, and bombard the particles into the plant cells. Another method is to use a
bacterium or virus. There are many viruses and bacteria that transfer their DNA into a host
cell as a normal part of their life cycle. For GM plants, the bacterium most frequently used is
called Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The gene of interest is transferred into the bacterium and
the bacterial cells then transfer the new DNA to the genome of the plant cells. The plant cells
that have successfully taken up the DNA are then grown to create a new plant. This is
possible because individual plant cells have an impressive capacity to generate entire plants.
On rare occasions, the process of DNA transfer can happen without deliberate human
intervention. For example the sweet potato contains DNA sequences that were transferred
thousands of years ago, from Agrobacterium bacteria into the sweet potato genome.
There are other ways to change the genomes of crops, some of which are long established,
such as mutational breeding, and others of which are new, such as genome editing, but in this
Q&A we are focusing on GM as it is currently usually defined for regulatory purposes in
Europe.
Nutritional enhancement: Higher vitamin content; more healthful fatty acid profiles;
Stress tolerance: Tolerance to high and low temperatures, salinity, and drought;
Disease resistance: For example, orange trees resistant to citrus greening disease or American
chestnut trees resistant to fungal blight;
Biofuels: Plants with altered cell wall composition for more efficient conversion to ethanol;
Phytoremediation: Plants that extract and concentrate contaminants like heavy metals from polluted
sites.
Gene gun: In this method, microscopic pellets of gold or tungsten are coated with the transgene fragment
and shot at high velocity into plant cells or tissues. In a small proportion of cases, the pellet will pass
through the cells and the DNA fragment will remain behind and become incorporated into a plant
chromosome in the cell nucleus.
Agrobacterium tumefaciens: This method utilizes a biological vector, the soil dwelling
bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which in nature transfers part of its DNA into plants and causes
crown gall disease. Genetic engineers have taken advantage of this DNA transfer mechanism while
disarming the disease-causing properties. Plant and bacterial cells are co-cultivated in a petri dish under
conditions that facilitate gene transfer. This allows incorporation of genes in a more controlled manner
than with the gene gun; however, it does not work equally well in all plant species.
Genetically modified foods are a hot and most controversial topic in today’s
society, with many fierce advocates on both sides, and they all make some
very good points. There have been numerous conflicting studies on the
safety of genetically modified foods but the problem is deciding which ones
are trustworthy, as many of them have been funded by the parties that
have a stake in the outcome, which creates a conflict of interest and means
that the research has been compromised. Going through all the available
information and research on the subject is not an easy task and would take
an incredible amount of time, so we will help you make an informed
decision. The fact is, whether we are aware of it or not, and whether by
choice or not, most of us eat genetically modified food on a regular basis.
The Centre for Food Safety claims that around 90 percent of soy and corn
grown in the United States today has been planted using genetically
modified seeds.
Climate change
Climate change is the rise in average surface temperatures on Earth, mostly due to the
burning of fossil fuels.
ARTICLE
Say Hello to the New Face of Climate Change
Climate change, also called global warming, refers to the rise in average
surface temperatures on Earth. An overwhelming scientific consensus
maintains that climate change is due primarily to the human use of fossil
fuels, which releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the
air. The gases trap heat within the atmosphere, which can have a range
of effects on ecosystems, including rising sea levels, severe weather
events, and droughts that render landscapes more susceptible to
wildfires.
While some quantities of these gases are a naturally occurring and critical
part of Earth’s temperature control system, the atmospheric concentration
of CO2 did not rise above 300 parts per million between the advent of
human civilization roughly 10,000 years ago and 1900. Today it is at
about 400 ppm, a level not reached in more than 400,000 years.
Climate change (or global warming), is the process of our planet heating up.
The Earth has warmed by an average of 1°C in the last century, and although that
might not sound like much, it means big things for people and wildlife around the
globe.
Unfortunately, rising temperatures don’t just mean that we’ll get nicer weather – if
only! The changing climate will actually make our weather
more extreme and unpredictable.
As temperatures rise, some areas will get wetter and lots of animals (and humans!)
could find they’re not able to adapt to their changing climate.
2. Farming
Believe it or not, cows’ eating habitscontribute towards greenhouse gases. Just like
us, when cows eat, methane gas builds up in their digestive system and is released
in the form of… a fart! This might sound funny, but when you imagine that there are
almost 1.5 billioncows releasing all that gas into the atmosphere, it sure adds up!
3. Deforestation
Forests absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas – from the air,
and release oxygen back into it. The Amazon rainforest is so large and efficient at
doing this that it is often called ‘the lungs of the Earth’. Sadly, many rainforests are
being cut down to make wood, palm oil and to clear the way for farmland, roads, oil
mines, and dams.
– More rainfall
– Changing seasons
Climate change is already affecting wildlife all over the world, but certain species are
suffering more than others. Polar animals – whose icy natural habitat is melting in
the warmer temperatures – are particularly at risk. In fact, experts believe that
the Arctic sea ice is melting at a shocking rate – 9% per decade! Polar bears need
sea ice to be able to hunt, raise their young and as places to rest after long periods
of swimming. Certain seal species, like ringed sealsmake caves in the snow and ice
to raise their pups, feed and mate.
It’s not just polar animals who are in trouble. Apes like orangutans, which live in the
rainforests of Indonesia, are under threat as their habitat is cut down, and more
droughts cause more bushfires.
Sea turtles rely on nesting beaches to lay their eggs, many of which are threatened
by rising sea levels. Did you know that the temperature of nests determines whether
the eggs are male or female? Unfortunately, with temperatures on the rise, this could
mean that many more females are born than males, threatening future turtle
populations.
We Brits love a good cuppa, (around165 million cups of the stuff every day!), but
we probably take for granted just how much work goes into growing our tea.
Environmental conditions can affect the flavour and quality plus it needs a very
specific rainfall to grow. In Kenya, climate change is making rainfall patterns less and
less predictable. Often there will be droughts followed by huge amounts rain, which
makes it very difficult to grow tea.
Farmers might then resort to using cheap chemicals to improve their crop to earn
more money, even when long-term use of these chemicals can destroy their soil.
This support also helps farmers to replace eucalyptus trees – which take up a lot of
water – with indigenous trees that are better for the farmers’ soil. They can learn to
make fuel-efficient stoves which will not only make them a little extra money, but
also reduce the carbon footprint of the community – cool!
Women upliftment is nearly impossible if issues like illiteracy, inequality, sexual harassment
and female infanticide are not combated in the right manner. The year 2015 saw the launch
of a flagship scheme by the Government of India, ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ (Save
daughters, educate daughters). The scheme aims to beget awareness regarding the waning
Child Sex Ratio (CSR), apart from perking up the efficiency of several welfare schemes that
have been rolled-out for women. The programme is being administered through a well-
framed national campaign and a focussed multi-sectorial effort in 100 districts having a
shallow CSR.
As Census data lays down, in the year 2001 the child sex Ratio in India (0-6 years) was a
mere 927 girls per 1,000 boys, which further declined in 2011 to a staggering 918 girls for
every 1,000 boys. To address this dwindling CSR is one of the core intentions of this
scheme and it is garnering massive support from NGOs like Save the Children who are
already doing pioneering work in fostering girl child education and welfare. NGOs work
through the support of philanthropic individuals, many of whom donate online to contribute to
the good of the society.
‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ is a collaborative initiative being run by Ministry of Women and
Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare and it covers all Indian states and union territories. The scheme has three
primary objectives:
2. Devise new schemes and work cohesively to ensure that every girl child is secured
and protected
BBBP programme is being implemented with full commitment of government officials across
the country. These officials are working in close coordination with each other in order to
ensure survival, well-being, security and education of the girl children. The government has
been actively working to converge BBBP with other schemes that have been implemented
for the well-being of girls in India. Several sub-schemes have also been rolled out as a part
of the umbrella BBBP scheme. For instance, Sukanya Samriddhi scheme is a small savings
scheme wherein the parents of a girl or a legal guardian can open a dedicated savings
account for her in any post office or in some of the authorized commercial banks. One needs
to make contribution to the scheme for the first 14 years only. In the remaining seven years
one will earn interest from the scheme without depositing.
Conclusion
The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme is a praiseworthy initiative by the Government of India
to address the issues revolving around girl children in India, right from the time they aren’t
even born to them turning adults. Apart from generating global headlines, the initiatives
under the scheme have started bearing fruit as the level of awareness among the masses to
work for girl child upliftment is increasing. An assessment of the scheme is due in July 2016.
Success of this scheme will add tremendously to the economic growth of the nation. This is
because to march ahead, India cannot afford having a large part of its population remain
neglected and marginalised.
As responsible members of the society, it is our duty as well to contribute for the betterment
of girl children. One can donate for education of marginalised girls to NGOs working in that
area and strengthen the cause. Remember, donation and tax benefits go hand-in-hand.
In all of Save the Children's programmes on education, there is a special focus on helping
more and more girls reach school. Your support can help us do a lot more for the most
marginalised girl children of India. Will you help?
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is a government social scheme launched by the Prime Minister
Narendra Modi in order to address the gender imbalance and discrimination against girl child in
the Indian society. This scheme was launched by the Prime Minister on 22nd of January in 2015
at Panipat, Haryana on Thursday. This scheme is to aware people about the importance of girls
in the society. It is to increase awareness among common people to save the lives of girl child by
completely removing the female foeticide. People should celebrate the birth of their girl child and
educate them with full responsibility as they do for their boy child. This programme is launched
by the Modi government regarding safety and protection of the girl child all through the country.
This scheme was the urgent need of today’s time as without saving and empowering women of
the country, development is not possible at all. Women cover around half population of the
country so they are half power of the country. That’s why they need equal rights, facilities and
opportunities to go ahead and contribute to the development of India. This scheme is regarding
girl safety, protection and better education in the future without much load on the parents. In
order to support this campaign, the government of India has started another programme named
as Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana. This scheme involves in reducing the burden of parents at her
young age. Because, according to this scheme, parents have to deposit some money in the bank
on monthly basis for which they will get benefited in future at the young age of their girl child
whether for the education or marriage. Such ambitious approach of government in the form of
Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme will surely bring positive changes in the status of women in
India. It is launched by the government with well planned objectives, strategies and action plan to
make it really effective. It is to save the lives of the down trodden girls and give them opportunity
of higher education so that they can be empowered and participate in all the working areas.
According to this scheme, around 100 districts (having low CSR) have been chosen to take
necessary actions first. This scheme is to improve welfare of the girl child by creating awareness
about gender discrimination in the society. The proposal of big amount of Indian rupee has been
passed for the women safety in urban and large cities of the country. This scheme alone can
support only however cannot completely solve the problem of girl child, it needs to be supported
by all the citizens of India. Rules and regulations, made to reduce crimes against girl child,
should be followed strictly and there should be strict punishment on violation. The Study is Purely
Theoretical. The Study is based on secondary data sources. The necessary information about
the Brief information about Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme and its various components are
collected from Books, Journals, Internet Source or related topic. The Researcher study about
the. Brief information about Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme. The Research Work includes I.
Introduction II.Methodology III. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme. IV Conclusion
Take, for example, the Ken-Betwa link which is the government’s top
priority. The link will facilitate export of water from drought-prone
Bundelkhand to the upper Betwa basin, as the detailed project report
(DPR) makes clear. The Ken-Betwa link’s hydrology is effectively a state
secret, so there is no way to check if the claim of Ken river being surplus is
valid. There has been no credible environmental impact assessment of the
link and no public hearings in canal and downstream affected areas. The
link’s environmental management plan is still being prepared.
The Ken-Betwa link threatens about 200 sq. km of the Panna tiger reserve,
and with it the Ken river and large parts of Bundelkhand. Yet, it does not
have an environment clearance, a final forest clearance, and its wildlife
clearance is being scrutinized by the Central-empowered committee
appointed by the Supreme Court. In fact, both forest and wildlife clearance
recommendations are under the condition that the power project will be
taken out of the forest/protected area, but the environment clearance
recommendation assumes the project will be inside the forest/protected
area. So even that is invalid.
The government justifies the Ken-Betwa link, and indeed the river
interlinking project as a whole, by saying that it will provide irrigation,
water supply, hydropower and flood control. But we need to understand
that most of India’s water benefits, including irrigation, come from
groundwater. In fact, in the past two-and-a-half decades, the net national
irrigated area from big dams has decreased by about 1.5 million hectares
from a peak of 17.79 million ha in 1991-92, according to government data.
But in the same period, India’s total irrigated area has gone up—primarily
due to groundwater. Groundwater is our water lifeline and whether we like
it or not, whether we want it or not, groundwater is going to remain our
water lifeline for decades to come.
Can the river interlinking project flood-proof the flood-prone river basins?
While theoretically, a large reservoir can help moderate floods in the
downstream areas, our experience on the ground doesn’t inspire as much
confidence. For example, heads of government, state officials, and the
Comptroller and Auditor General have on numerous occasions pointed out
that big dams such as the Ranganadi dam, the Damodar dams, the Farakka
and Bansagar dams, and the Hirakud dam have brought avoidable flood
disasters to Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, respectively.
The other problem with the river interlinking project is that of storing large
quantities of waters. Most of the sites suitable for the big reservoirs are in
Nepal, Bhutan and in the North-East—and each one has made clear their
opposition to big storage reservoirs.
If the water cannot be stored in big reservoirs during the monsoon, which is
when some rivers are flooded, then the other option is to transfer the water
to deficit basins during this time. But when the Brahmaputra is in floods, so
is the Ganga and all the rivers through which the water needs to be
transferred, including the Subarnarekha, the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the
Krishna, the Pennar, and so on. Why should these rivers, that are already
facing floods, receive more water?
There is no doubt that if we can store water during the monsoon, we can
make it available in the post monsoon months. But the water resources
establishment sees big dams as the only storage option. Yet, the biggest,
cheapest, most benign, possibly fastest and most decentralized storage
option for India is the groundwater aquifer.
In other words, what India needs is not interlinking of rivers but something
else to achieve water, agriculture and livelihood security.
Americans take great pride in their press freedom. But the truth is, it’s under
attack. This trend goes beyond the current president and his administration
branding credible news outlets as “fake news” and threatening journalists and
leakers with lawsuits. What’s perhaps less widely known is the Obama
administration’s prosecution of a record eight whistleblowers for leaking
government secrets to the media. Journalists are also increasingly being stopped
and searched at US borders, and they’ve recently been arrested for covering
protests at the inauguration and at Standing Rock. For these reasons, the US ranks
number 43 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. That’s right —
42 countries, including Ghana, South Africa and Jamaica — are judged
by Reporters Without Borders to have greater press freedom than the United
States, whose freedom is enshrined in its most important document.
Timm, a lawyer and a TED Fellow, runs the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a
nonprofit organization that defends journalists through Internet advocacy,
crowdfunding campaigns and tools to protect reporters and their sources
(including SecureDrop, a safe way for whistleblowers to send information to
journalists). The Foundation’s newest tool is the US Press Freedom Tracker, which
monitors violations in the US. Here, Timm shares a brief overview of press
freedom in America and explains why government whistleblowers are so vital to
an independent press.
The US owes its existence in part to a free press. “Some of the most important
voices before and during the American Revolution were anonymous pamphleteers
who were writing under pseudonyms, talking about the crimes of the British
government,” Timm says. Speeches, pamphlets and newspapers were critical in
informing and galvanizing public support for the revolt. And because a free press
was so pivotal in their efforts to overthrow British rule, the Founding Fathers
decided to protect that right with the First Amendment, ratified in 1791.
But the rights protected by the First Amendment have never been absolute.US
history has been marked by an ongoing conflict between the government’s
attempts to strengthen and protect itself and the press’s attempts to scrutinize and
report on the government. Along the way, the US government has scored some key
victories in stifling the press. The Sedition Act of 1798 made it criminal to criticize
high-ranking government officials; anti-war activists during WWI were jailed; and
FDR created an Office of Censorship during WWII in an attempt to control the
media narrative around the war effort. However, a number of Supreme Court cases
in the 20th century were able to establish robust legal protections for the press.
These cases include Near vs. Minnesota (1931), which held that it was largely
unconstitutional for a government to censor the press, and New York Times v.
United States (1971), which ruled that the Nixon Administration could not use
vague pronouncements of “national security” to censor the publication of the
Pentagon Papers.
“Fake news” is more than an insult — it hampers the press in its efforts to
protect the public. Thomas Jefferson famously mused that he’d rather have
newspapers without a country than a country without newspapers, and for good
reason. An independent press ensures that citizens stay informed about the actions
of their government, creating a forum for debate and the open exchange of ideas.
And the press also occupies another critical role: watchdog. “We’re in a situation
now where one party controls three branches of the government, so the fourth
estate, the press, is really the last mechanism that the public has to force
accountability on government,” Timm says. But if people don’t believe the
mainstream media can be trusted, then they won’t believe journalists if they
publish evidence of corruption or illegal activity by the government. That’s the
troubling situation we could find ourselves in if “fake news” becomes shorthand
for reporting that the government doesn’t agree with.
In recent years, the US government has taken legal action against journalists’
sources. Recent whistleblowers have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act of
1917, a law passed during WWI to prevent insubordination and the disclosure of
military secrets to foreign enemies. From 1917 until 2009, only one government
whistleblower was convicted under this law. But from 2009 to 2016, the Obama
administration used it to prosecute eight whistleblowers, including Chelsea
Manning and Edward Snowden, and many predict that the law will continue to be
used aggressively against sources. The Espionage Act has been called
unconstitutional by the ACLU because it is selectively used against leakers who
depict the government in bad light and it does not allow for whistleblowers to
argue in court for the public interest served by the release of leaked information.
Ultimately, says Timm, the increasing use of the Espionage Act makes sources less
likely to approach journalists with classified information, even if it would benefit
the general public, for fear of being jailed.
The Espionage Act could be deployed against reporters, too. Nixon tried and
failed to use the Espionage Act against the New York Times for publishing the
Pentagon Papers. But the narrow Supreme Court ruling in that case leaves open the
possibility that it could one day be used to criminally prosecute journalists for
publishing leaks, says Timm. “There have been a half-a-dozen cases over the past
50 years of administrations threatening to use the Espionage Act directly against
reporters for publishing stories about national security, and they’ve never fully
gone down that path,” he says. “But it’s always been a cloud that has loomed over
journalists.”
A new database keeps tabs on press freedom in the US. While Timm and other
media observers sensed that free press violations have been increasing over the
past decade, no one was actually keeping a record. Now for the first time, the US
Press Freedom Tracker will comprehensively count and document press freedom
violations in America, including reporter arrests, border stops and court orders for
surveillance. “We want to raise awareness about how it’s not just journalists who
are affected by the erosion of press freedom rights,” Timm says, “it’s really the
public that ultimately suffers.”
Freedom of Press
Freedom of the press protects the right to obtain and publish
information or opinions without government censorship or fear of
punishment. Censorship occurs when the government examines
publications and productions and prohibits the use of material it finds
offensive. Freedom of press applies to all types of printed and
broadcast material, including books, newspapers, magazines,
pamphlets, films and radio and television programs.
The Constitution's framers provided the press with broad freedom.
This freedom was considered necessary to the establishment of a
strong, independent press sometimes called "the fourth branch" of
the government. An independent press can provide citizens with a
variety of information and opinions on matters of public importance.
However, freedom of press sometimes collides with other rights, such
as a defendant's right to a fair trial or a citizen's right to privacy. In
recent years, there has been increasing concern about extremely
aggressive journalism, including stories about people's sexual lives
and photographs of people when they were in a private setting.
In the United States, the government may not prevent the publication
of a newspaper, even when there is reason to believe that it is about
to reveal information that will endanger our national security. By the
same token, the government cannot:
Pass a law that requires newspapers to publish information
against their will.
Impose criminal penalties, or civil damages, on the publication
of truthful information about a matter of public concern or even
on the dissemination of false and damaging information about
a public person except in rare instances.
Impose taxes on the press that it does not levy on other
businesses.
Compel journalists to reveal, in most circumstances, the
identities of their sources.
Prohibit the press from attending judicial proceedings and
thereafter informing the public about them.
Collectively, this bundle of rights, largely developed by U.S. Supreme
Court decisions, defines the “freedom of the press” guaranteed by
the First Amendment. What we mean by the freedom of the press is,
in fact, an evolving concept. It is a concept that is informed by the
perceptions of those who crafted the press clause in an era of
pamphlets, political tracts and periodical newspapers, and by the
views of Supreme Court justices who have interpreted that clause
over the past two centuries in a world of daily newspapers, books,
magazines, motion pictures, radio and television broadcasts, and
now Web sites and Internet postings.
The framers' conception of freedom of the press has been the
subject of intense historical debate, both among scholars and in the
pages of judicial opinions. At the very least, those who drafted and
ratified the Bill of Rights purported to embrace the notion, derived
from William Blackstone, that a free press may not be licensed by the
sovereign, or otherwise restrained in advance of publication
(see New York Times Co. v. United States, 1971.) And, although the
subject remains a lively topic of academic debate, the Supreme
Court itself reviewed the historical record in 1964 in New York Times
Co. v. Sullivan and concluded that the “central meaning of the First
Amendment” embraces as well a rejection of the law of seditious
libel — i.e., the power of the sovereign to impose subsequent
punishments, from imprisonment to criminal fines to civil damages,
on those who criticize the state and its officials.
To a great extent, however, what we mean by freedom of the press
today was shaped in an extraordinary era of Supreme Court
decision-making that began with Sullivan and concluded in 1991
with Cohen v. Cowles Media Co. During that remarkable period, the
Court ruled in at least 40 cases involving the press and fleshed out
the skeleton of freedoms addressed only rarely in prior cases. In
contrast, although the Court in the early part of the last century had
considered the First Amendment claims of political dissidents with
some frequency, it took nearly 150 years after the adoption of the Bill
of Rights, and the First Amendment along with it, for the Court to issue
its first decision based squarely on the freedom of the press.
That 1931 case, Near v. Minnesota, ratified the Blackstonian
proposition that a prior restraint — a legal prohibition on the press’s
ability to publish information in its possession — will almost always
violate the First Amendment. Near is a landmark, not just because it
was the Court’s first decision to invoke the press clause, but because
it established a fundamental precept of constitutional law — that
once the press has gotten its hands on information that it deems to
be newsworthy, the government can seldom, if ever, prevent that
information from being published.
Over the course of the quarter-century following Sullivan, the Court
made it its business to explore the ramifications of the case on a
virtually annual basis. During that period, the Supreme Court’s
elaboration of what we mean by a free press focused on the nature
of the official restraint alleged to compromise that freedom as well
as the extent to which the First Amendment protects the press from a
given species of governmental action or inaction. Thus, in cases
such as Near and the “Pentagon Papers” case (1971's New York
Times Co. v. United States, the Court established that freedom of the
press from previous restraints on publication is nearly absolute,
encompassing the right to publish information that a president
concluded would harm the national security, if not the movements of
troopships at sea in time of war. In 1974's Miami Herald Publishing
Co. v. Tornillo, the Court embraced the analogous proposition that
the government has virtually no power to compel the press to publish
that which it would prefer to leave on the proverbial “cutting room
floor.”
In that regard, however, it must be noted that not all media are
“created equal” when it comes to entitlement to the full protections
of the First Amendment’s press clause. Most significantly, because of
a perceived “scarcity” of the electromagnetic spectrum, the Court
has held that Congress and the Federal Communications
Commission may regulate the activities of broadcasters operating
over “public” airwaves in a manner that would surely violate the First
Amendment if applied to newspapers. (Compare Red Lion
Broadcasting v. FCC (1969) with Tornillo.) The Court’s reasoning
in Red Lion, in which it upheld the Commission’s “Fairness Doctrine”
and “personal attack” rule — i.e., the right of a person criticized on a
broadcast station to respond to such criticism over the same
airwaves licensed to that station — has never been disavowed,
although the justices have expressly declined to extend it to other,
later-developed communications media, including cable television
(1994's Turner Broadcasting v. FCC) and the Internet (1997's Reno v.
ACLU), to which the “scarcity” rationale for regulation is plainly
inapplicable.
Even in the broadcast context, however, Sullivan and the cases that
followed it stand for the proposition that the First Amendment
protects the publication of truthful information about matters of
public concern, not just from prior restraint, but also from subsequent
punishment, at least in the absence of a demonstrated need to
vindicate a competing government interest of the “highest order.”
This formulation has come to be known as “the Daily Mailprinciple,”
after the Supreme Court’s 1979 decision in Smith v. Daily Mail
Publishing Co., in which the Court held that a newspaper could not
be liable for publishing the name of a juvenile offender in violation of
a West Virginia law declaring such information to be private. The
protections against subsequent punishments for reporting the truth
afforded by the Daily Mail principle are not absolute, but the barriers
to such government regulation of the press are set extremely high.
Sullivan and cases that followed also hold that the First Amendment
protects the publication of false information about matters of public
concern in a variety of contexts, although with considerably less
vigor than it does dissemination of the truth. Even so, public officials
and public figures may not recover civil damages for injury to their
reputations unless they were the victims of a reckless disregard for
truth in the dissemination of a “calculated falsehood.” Indeed,
private persons may not collect civil damages for reputational harm
caused by falsehoods relating to a matter of public concern unless
the publisher’s conduct violates a fault-based standard of care. And
although expressions of “opinion” are not always immune from legal
sanction, in its 1990 decision in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., the
Court held that statements not capable of being proven false, or
which reasonable people would not construe as statements of fact
at all, but rather as mere “rhetorical hyperbole,” are absolutely
protected by the First Amendment.
By the same token, the Supreme Court has been considerably less
definitive in articulating the degree of First Amendment protection to
be afforded against restraints on the freedom of the press that are
indirect and more subtle than the issuance of a prior restraint or the
imposition of criminal or civil sanctions subsequent to publication.
Thus, for example, in its 1978 decision Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, the
Court held that the First Amendment does not protect the press and
its newsrooms from the issuance of otherwise valid search warrants.
Similarly, in 1979 in Herbert v. Lando, the Court concluded that the
press clause does not encompass a privilege that would empower a
journalist to decline to testify about the “editorial process” in civil
discovery. Most significantly, in 1972 in Branzburg v. Hayes, a sharply
divided Court was skeptical of the contention that the First
Amendment protects journalists from the compelled disclosure of the
identities of their confidential sources, at least in the context of a
grand-jury proceeding. The Court, however, has not addressed that
issue in the 30 years since Branzburg, and has effectively permitted
the lower courts to fashion an impressive body of law grounding just
such a “reporter’s privilege” firmly in the press clause itself. That
privilege, however, is by no means absolute and may be forfeited in
a variety of circumstances, especially when no confidential source is
thereby placed in jeopardy or when disclosure is sought in the
context of a grand-jury or other criminal proceeding.
And, finally, the Court has held that the First Amendment affords the
press and public affirmative rights of access to at least some
government proceedings. In a series of decisions beginning with
1980's Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, the Court established
that the First Amendment not only protects the press from prior
restraints and other government-imposed penalties, but also invests
the press and public with a right to attend criminal trials and other
judicial proceedings. This right, however, is not absolute and is
routinely balanced against other competing interests articulated by
the proponents of secret proceedings. Nevertheless, in such cases,
and others like 1975's Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, the Court has
expressly recognized the structural role that the press plays as a
“surrogate” for the larger public in gathering and disseminating
information on its behalf and for its benefit. Significantly, however,
the Court has taken great pains not to anoint the press with First
Amendment-based rights and immunities beyond those enjoyed by
any speaker, “lonely pamphleteer” (see Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972),
or Internet chat-room participant.
Indeed, the Court has rejected arguments advanced by the
institutional press that, because of its structural role in ensuring the
free flow of information in a democratic society, it ought to enjoy
unique protections from otherwise generally applicable laws that
inhibit its ability to gather and report the news. Thus, in 1991 in Cohen
v. Cowles Media Co., the Court effectively concluded the treatise on
the freedom of the press it began in Sullivan; it did so when it
emphasized that the press is properly subject to liability under the
“generally applicable” law of contracts when it breaks a promise to
keep a source’s identity confidential, even when it does so in order
to report truthful information about the source’s involvement in a
matter of public concern.
In the decade following Cohen, the Court again fell largely silent
when it came to the First Amendment’s application to the institutional
press. As the 21st century dawned, however, the Court interrupted
that silence, at least briefly, to revisit the extent to which a “generally
applicable” law such as the federal wiretap statute can
constitutionally impose criminal penalties and civil liability on the
dissemination by the press of the contents of unlawfully recorded
telephone conversations, at least when the information so
disseminated is the truth about a matter of public concern.
In 2001 in Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Court held that, even when a
statute is directed at deterring unlawful conduct (e.g., the
interception of telephone conversations) and not at penalizing the
content of press reports, it nevertheless constitutes a “naked
prohibition” on the dissemination of information by the press that is
“fairly characterized as a regulation of pure speech” in violation of
the First Amendment. In so holding, the Court ushered in a new
century of First Amendment jurisprudence by reaffirming both
the Daily Mail principle — the fundamental right of a free press to
disseminate truthful information about public matters — and the
“central meaning of the First Amendment” on which it is based —
Sullivan’s recognition that the “‘freedom of expression upon public
questions is secured by the First Amendment’” so that “‘debate on
public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open.’”
While it is undeniable fact that freedom of press is essential
ingredient of democracy, it does not mean it will advance the goals
of democracy.
Namely, once in this country that now seems far away, radio and
television broadcasters had an obligation to operate in the public
interest. That generally accepted principle was reflected in a rule
known as the Fairness Doctrine. The rule, formally adopted by the
Federal Communications Commission in 1949, required all
broadcasters to devote a reasonable amount of time to the
discussion of controversial matters of public interest. It further
required broadcasters to air contrasting points of view regarding
those matters. The Fairness Doctrine arose from the idea imbedded in
the First Amendment that the wide dissemination of information from
diverse and even antagonistic sources is essential to the public
welfare and to a healthy democracy.
In August 1987 the FCC repealed the Doctrine, claiming that it was
unconstitutional, although the Supreme Court had ruled unanimously
in 1969 that the Fairness Doctrine was not only constitutional but
essential to democracy. As a result, general public is very rarely
served with fair and balanced information. The public airwaves serve
today no other purpose but to express the opinions of those who can
pay for air time. Some authors argue that mainstream media
journalism today is a shameful joke because of president Reagan's
decision to abolish Fairness Doctrine. Once upon a time, the Fairness
Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital
to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came
from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies
annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-
corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's
old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news
channels. This company profits from every war Americans fight, but
somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths and lies
are sold to us.
Why freedom of press and media is important?
A free press and media are vital in the democratic country. There is some importance is given to the press and
media are following as:
The press and media enjoy the greater opportunity of freedom in the democratic country.
They are independent among important checking on governm ent and administrators.
The press and media are free to raise voice against any social ill or wrong. It is the internal vigilance of the price
of liberty.
Press and media can also raise voice against any dictatorship, corruption and mal practices.
They work day and night and deliver the accurate news with the high speed. They complete their duties always.
No one people will get information about the country without the press and media.
Press and media are also necessary for the fulfillment of the democratic ideologies
The Modi-led BJP government, however, rowed back from the commitment of the
last UPA government to buy 126 Rafales, saying the twin-engined planes would be
too expensive and the deal fell through after nearly decade-long negotiations
between India and France. There were a lot of hiccups over costs of the aircraft.
However, faced with the dipping number of fighters and a pressing need to upgrade
the Indian Air Force, Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervened and decided to
buy 36 "ready-to-fly" fighters instead of trying to acquire technology from Dassault
and make it in India.
Soon after the deal was declared, the Congress accused the ruling BJP of non-
transparency in the multi-billion dollar deal and called it "one of the biggest
failures" of the 'Make-in-India' programme.
In January 2016, India confirmed order of 36 Rafale jets in defence deal with France
and under this deal, Dassault and its main partners - engine-maker Safran and
electronic systems-maker Thales - will share some technology with DRDO (Defence
Research and Development Organisation) and some private sector companies and
HAL under the offsets clause.
The twin-engine Rafale combat jet is designed from the beginning as a multi-role
fighter for air-to-air and air-to-ground attack is nuclear-capable and its on-board
Electronic Warfare (EW) systems can also perform reconnaissance and radar
jamming roles.
Rafale deal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with French president Francois Hollande during an official dinner in
Paris. Photo Credit: AFP
Nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the
proposal during a visit to Paris, finally in September 2016, India signed an inter-
governmental agreement with France, dubbed as "Rafale deal", in which India will
pay about Rs. 58,000 crore or 7.8 billion Euros for 36 off-the-shelf Dassault Rafale
twin-engine fighters. About 15 per cent of this cost is being paid in advance. As per
the deal, India will also get spares and weaponry, including the Meteor missile,
considered among the most advanced in the world.
Additionally, an accompanying offset clause was sealed through which France will
invest 30 per cent of the 7.8 billion Euros in India's military aeronautics-related
research programmes and 20 per cent into local production of Rafale components.
In November 2016, however, a political warfare over the Rafale deal began and the
Congress accused the government of causing "insurmountable loss" of taxpayers'
money by signing the deal worth Rs. 58,000 crores. It also claimed that the Anil
Ambani-led Reliance Defence Limited had been unfairly picked to be the French
firm's Indian partner. The Congress alleged that the cost of each aircraft is three
times more than what the previous UPA had negotiated with France in 2012.
3 COMMENTS
The claims were rebutted by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Anil Ambani-
led Reliance Defence Limited with the government saying that the renegotiated deal
was transparent and better than the deal negotiated by the previous UPA
government as it includes a superior weapons package and logistical support, which
had been absent in the previous one. Reliance Defence had also said that its
subsidiary Reliance Aerostructure and Dassault Aviation formed a joint venture -
Dassault Reliance Aerospace, after a bilateral agreement between two private
companies and "the Indian government has no role to play in this."
The Congress, however, kept up its attacks on the government for refusing to table
details of the Rafale deal over alleged irregularities. The Defence Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman told the Parliament earlier this week that the details of the deal with
France for the Rafale fighter jets cannot be disclosed as per the inter-governmental
agreement as it is "classified information".
Officials say that due to national security reasons, there is a confidentiality clause in
the Rafale deal which bars the buyer and seller from talking about the pricing,
making it impossible for any government to reveal any detail about the defence
deals.
In a counter-attack to the Congress, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused the party
of "seriously compromising" country's security by seeking details of weaponry
purchased along with the aircraft. He also advised Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to
"learn" from former Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee "lessons on national
security".
The dee Supreme Court today (December 14) dismissed all writ petitions demanding
a court-monitored CBI probe into the Rafale jet deal. The apex court said it had no
objections to any aspect of the deal and gave it the go-ahead.
The ruling today came on four petitions that had asked the Supreme Court to set up a
court-monitored probe into the signing of the Rafale deal. The petitions had alleged
that the Modi government not only overpaid for 36 Rafale jets but also promoted
crony capitalism.
The Modi government had signed an inter-governmental deal with France in 2016 for
the sale of 36 Rafale medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) in flyaway
condition. The deal, however, came under intense political scrutiny in India and in
France after the Opposition alleged that Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Defence had
been signed on as the offset partner by weapons manufacturer Dassault Aviation, even
though the company had no previous experience.
The deal has been at the centre of much controversy, with the Opposition making it a
key weapon in its arsenal against the Modi government.
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2. Disguised Unemployment:
It is a situation in which more people are doing work than actually
required. Even if some are withdrawn, production does not suffer.
In other words it refers to a situation of employment with surplus
manpower in which some workers have zero marginal productivity.
3. Seasonal Unemployment:
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4. Cyclical Unemployment:
It is caused by trade cycles at regular intervals. Generally capitalist
economies are subject to trade cycles. The down swing in business
activities results in unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is
normally a shot-run phenomenon.
5. Educated Unemployment:
Among the educated people, apart from open unemployment, many
are underemployed because their qualification does not match the
job. Faulty education system, mass output, preference for white
collar jobs, lack of employable skills and dwindling formal salaried
jobs are mainly responsible for unemployment among educated
youths in India. Educated unemployment may be either open or
underemployment.
6. Technological Unemployment:
It is the result of certain changes in the techniques of production
which may not warrant much labour. Modern technology being
capital intensive requires less labourers and contributes to this kind
of unemployment.
7. Structural Unemployment:
This type of unemployment arises due to drastic changes in the
economic structure of a country. These changes may affect either
the supply of a factor or demand for a factor of production.
Structural employment is a natural outcome of economic
development and technological advancement and innovation that
are taking place rapidly all over the world in every sphere.
8. Underemployment:
It is a situation in which people employed contribute less than their
capacity to production. In this type of unemployment people are not
gainfully employed. They may be employed either on part-time
basis, or undertake a job for which lesser qualification is required.
For example a Post Graduate may work as a clerk for which only
S.S.L.C. is enough.
9. Casual Unemployment:
When a person is employed on a day-to-day basis, casual
unemployment may occur due to short-term contracts, shortage of
raw materials, fall in demand, change of ownership etc.
Measurement of Unemployment:
There are three measures or estimates of unemployment. These are
developed by National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). They
are:
7. Inappropriate technology.
In many cases, the work is not given to the deserving candidates but
given to the person belonging to a particular community. So this
gives rise to unemployment.
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Many of them seem to be working but they do not add anything to
production. So they encourage disguised unemployment.
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Due to lack of irrigation, large area of land can grow only one crop
in a year. Farmers remain unemployed for most time of the year.
The unemployment rate in December 2018 shot up to 7.38 per cent from
6.62 per cent in November 2018 and 4.78 per cent in December 2017. This
is also the highest unemployment rate since September 2016 when it stood
at a high of 8.46 per cent.
A closer look at the numbers show that a large part of the drop in
employment over the last 12-months is on account of job losses in rural
areas. Of the total drop of 1.09 crore jobs in calendar 2018, 91.4 lakh or
over 83 per cent of the jobs were lost in the rural areas, shows the
database.
The number of those employed in rural areas dropped from 26.94 crore in
December 2017 to 26.03 crore in December 2018. The remaining 17.9 lakh
jobs were lost in the urban areas as the overall numbers of employed fell
from 13.84 crore to 13.66 crore.
However, in line with a dip in the unemployment rate, the CMIE data shows
that there has been a dip in the estimated labour participation rate —
proportion of working-age people (which is people of 15 years or more)
who are willing to work and are either actually working or are actively
looking for work.
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According to the CMIE data, the estimated labour participation rate came
down to 42.47 in December 2018 from 43.57 in December 2017. It
however, stood at 45.15 in December 2016 and at 47.84 in September
2017.
In an article in October 2018, Mahesh Vyas, MD and CEO of CMIE wrote,
“In my opinion, the LPR is more important than the unemployment rate
because it tells us how many people are willing to work.”
He further said that while a high LPR directly contributes to growth, if a very
small proportion of people are willing to work then a low unemployment rate
does not mean much. Data shows that while the trend in urban and rural
areas have been broadly the same in calendar 2018, it was contrasting in
calendar 2017.
While the urban regions witnessed an overall increase in the number of
employed by 35.5 lakh, the rural areas witnessed over 10 lakh job losses in
2017 too
It’s nearly 100 days since the century’s worst floods lashed Kerala, but for
many like Raju, life is yet to get back to normal. According to a United
Nations study, the floods caused damage of ₹30,000 crore.
“There are institutional bottlenecks. Kerala has no proper master plan for
any district; hundreds of areas and buildings damaged in the floods were
built on dubious legality in the first place. Before the state, the system itself
needs a reconstruction,” a person aware of official talks said on condition of
anonymity.
“Small scale businessmen were to get bank loans of up to ₹10 lakh. But
banks have not yet given them, as the government failed to create a
consortium. At least ₹1 lakh interest-free credit was offered through
Kudumbasree (Kerala’s biggest women’s self-help group). Some 1.42 lakh
have applied for it, but only 38,441 have given loans,” Chennithala said
Sunday.
Even as the flood waters have begun to recede, people in the southern
Indian state of Kerala are yet to come to terms with the extent of damage
caused to lives and properties. The state faced its worst disaster since 1924,
and it is now important to rebuild infrastructure and rehabilitate the
displaced population. It will be a long road ahead for the authorities to
restore normalcy.
The handling of flood waste is also difficult to manage because of the mud
mixed with the debris and the sheer volume of waste, which would be much
higher as compared to the daily waste collected in a normal scenario. After
the floods in Mumbai in 2005, estimates suggest that the daily waste
collected increased by almost three times the usual amount (normally
around 5,000 tonnes per day) immediately after the event. In the first
month, around 2.5 lakh tonnes of waste was cleared from the city. Chennai
collected almost 1.3 lakh tonnes of waste after the floods in 2015, with a
volume of approximately 11,000 tonnes per day, which is double the usual
amount. Though recent estimates are not available, Kerala was generating
more than 8,000 tonnes of waste per day before the floods. Looking at the
severity of the damage, we can anticipate a much higher volume of waste to
be disposed in the state at this moment.
Closed industrial estates or parks away from residential areas could be used
as temporary disposal sites. These sites should have adequate space for
manoeuvring waste trucks as well as vehicles of people who bring waste on
their own. There should be clearly demarcated spaces with signage for
organic waste, building waste, furniture waste, appliances, metals, vehicles,
and so on. Equipment such as cranes, crushers, dumpers, excavators and
mobile-compactors would be required in such a site. It would be easier for
the authorities to handle each type of waste from the piles at the site. For
example, building material debris could be recycled to make valuable
reconstruction material for the state. The state has recently directed Clean
Kerala Company Ltd. to shred plastic waste segregated from the debris and
use it for road tarring. The neighbouring states could also help in such
activities.
Support has been pouring into the state and it is imperative to ensure that
this support continues. It would influence the short and long term actions
that can be taken by the local authorities -- directly influencing the pace of
recovery and rehabilitation in the state, without compromising on public
health or environment.
At the heart of the crisis is the struggle between its two top
bosses -- Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana.
A) People involved
Is this a case of competitive rivalry gone wrong between Alok Verma and
Rakesh Asthana? To understand the case, here’s a background of the two
top bosses who are at the centre of the infighting.
Alok Verma
Alok Kumar Verma was appointed as the CBI chief in January 2017 after
being shortlisted from a list of 45 candidates. The committee that
appointed him included Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Mallikarjun
Kharge, Congress leader in Lok Sabha; and JS Khehar, the then Chief
Justice of India.
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Verma is a 1979 batch Indian Police Service officer and has been in services
for close to 38 years. In all these years, he has served at 24 posts. He was
the Delhi Police Commissioner before being appointed as CBI chief.
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The IPS officer has also served as the Director General for Tihar prisons,
police chief of Mizoram among others.
Rakesh Asthana
A 1984-cadre IPS officer, Rakesh Asthana was appointed as the special
director of the CBI in October 2017. He is said to be close to Bharatiya
Janata Party chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as both of
them belong to Gujarat.
The appointment of the Gujarat cadre officer had not gone down well with
many. His appointment was even challenged in the court by senior lawyer
Prashant Bhushan.
He was a part of the Special Investigation Team that looked into the 2002
Godhra train burning case. He also investigated the fodder scam between
1994 to 2001 in which former Bihar chief minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav was
convicted.
According to Prashant Bhushan, he is not fit for the post as his name
figures in the diary of Sterling Biotech, which is being investigated by CBI
itself.
B) Egos clash
As stated before Verma took charge of the CBI on February 1, 2017. Till
then, Asthana was the acting CBI director.
It is said that when Verma took charge, Asthana started flexing his muscles
and took decisions without keeping the director in the loop.
All this while it seemed that the tussle between the two heads would
subside. However, in July this year, the infighting came out in the open
when the CBI responded to a query by the Central Vigilance Commission
saying that Rakesh Asthana did not have the mandate to represent agency
director Alok Verma.
The CVC wanted to know as to who from the agency would attend a CBI
selection committee meeting it had called on July 12. CBI chief Alok Verma
was in Uruguay at the time. The CBI responded by requesting the CVC to
postpone the meet to July 19 so that Alok Verma could attend the meeting.
In its letter, the CBI had told the CVC that Rakesh Asthana was under the
scanner of the agency in cases of corruption. Next month in August, Rakesh
Asthana wrote to the cabinet secretary alleging corruption by Alok Verma.
Asthana further claimed when he and his team wanted to arrest Sana in
February, Verma called him and told him not to do so. Asthana has also
accused Verma of taking him off probes into the IRCTC case against Lalu
Prasad Yadav and the INX Media case involving former finance minister P
Chidambaram.
A few days ago, the CBI filed an FIR against Asthana and has now arrested
Devendera Kumar, a deputy superintendent of police in the agency, who
has been working with Asthana. Interestingly, the FIR was lodged on a
compliant by Sana accusing Asthana of extorting money from him to shield
him in the Qureshi case.
23. BREXIT
The UK cabinet agreed the withdrawal agreement text on 14 November, but there
were two resignations, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab.
MPs have been debating the deal but the PM postponed a Commons vote
scheduled for 11 December to seek "further assurances" from the EU for MPs about
the post-Brexit plan for the Irish border (see below for more about that).
Downing Street says the vote will be rescheduled for 21 January at the latest,
although Brexit Minister Robin Walker told MPs he hoped it would be sooner.
First, freedom means independence � the ability to take care of one�s self. If you
can travel by yourself, that�s part of independence. If you can fold your own
clothes, that is part of independence. And if you can cook, and so on and so forth,
that�s also part of independence. But you must put all of these tasks together in
your day-to-day life to achieve independence, and this is part of freedom.
Secondly, free-agency is part of freedom as well. Free agency is the ability to make
choices for yourself. When you can make decisions about what kind of job you
want, that�s free agency. Deciding when to cross a street is free agency. When
you decide what college to attend, that�s free agency. Free agency is the ability to
make good or bad choices.
Now, thirdly, independence and free agency will go together throughout your life.
If you are limited in your independence, you will also be limited in your free
agency. Let�s say a blind person has five choices of getting around. There�s
walking, taking the bus, taking a cab, begging rides off of people, and special
transit for the disabled. Now, let�s say you don�t know how to travel
independently as a blind person. There goes walking and there goes the bus. You
are now limited to taking a cab, begging rides from people, and special transit. But
walking and taking the bus are the most independent and the cheapest ways of
getting around. So now you�re limited to those three options. If you take a cab,
you�ll spend a lot of money. If you beg for a ride, you have to worry about
getting someone you can�t trust. If you take special transit, you have to schedule
your life two weeks in advance. And so the conclusion is that free agency and
independence go hand-in-hand�if you are limited in one, you are
limited in the other.
In closing, these are the things that I think make up freedom: independence, free
agency, and making good choices. The NFB is trying to teach parents about the
importance of these elements of freedom to blind children. We should value them
and try to exercise them in our everyday lives. Now think about what freedom
means to you, and see what you come up with. Thank you for your time and
willingness to listen to this speech.
The passport,
The driving licence,
The Permanent Account Number (PAN) Card,
The Voter’s ID issued by Election Commission of India,
The Aadhar Card;
Any other document as notified by the Central Government in consultation
with the Regulator:
Provided that where simplified measures are applied for verifying the identity of the
clients, the following documents shall be deemed to be officially valid documents:—
In case, there is a change in the current address, you need to submit valid
documents to transfer your account to the new address.
Two passport size photographs are required.
In case, a person does not have a valid residential address, he/she needs to
submit a valid identity proof issued by the government of India.
Important to note that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has clarified in the year 2014
that those persons who do not have any of the ‘officially valid documents’ can open
“Small Accounts” with banks.
A “Small Account” can be opened by a person on the basis of a self-attested
photograph and putting his/her signatures or thumb print in the presence of officials
of the bank. For such accounts, the aggregate credits have been limited to not more
than Rs 1 lakh a year and aggregate withdrawals have been limited to not more than
Rs 10,000 in a month, and balance in the account at any point of time should not
cross Rs 50,000. The validity of these accounts is 1 year, normally after which such
accounts would be allowed to continue for a further period of twelve more months if
the account-holder provides a document showing that he/she has applied for any of
the Officially Valid Document within 12 months of opening the small account.
The account holders under this scheme will get an accidental insurance cover of Rs
1 lakh and a life cover of Rs 30,000 – payment on the death of the beneficiary
(subject to conditions).
Loan Benefits
The account holders under this scheme can avail an overdraft facility upto Rs 5,000.
This is available against one account per household. The quantum of the loan may
look small but definitely is a boon to those below the poverty line and would enable
them to reinvest this in more profitable avenues.
Enabling carrying out transactions through a mobile phone facilitates such account
holders in checking of balance and also transferring funds with ease across India.
The other benefits being:
New Delhi | Mumbai: Vijay Mallya failed in his bid to stave off extradition from the UK to India to face
charges of fraud and money laundering after the Westminster Magistrates’ Court rejected his plea.
Chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot said there was, prima facie, a case against Mallya for fraud,
conspiracy and money laundering, describing him as “this glamorous, flashy, famous, bejeweled,
bodyguarded, ostensibly billionaire playboy who charmed and cajoled these bankers into losing their ..
HIGHLIGHTS
Vijay Mallya's extradition trial began on December 4 ,2017
The embattled businessman said he repeatedly offered to pay back 100 per cent principle amount of
dues to Indian banks
A 14-day window to appeal will be provided to both Mallya and Indian authorities after the initial
order
. Expectation of lower interest rates with further liquidity infusion by the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) under its new chief, along with healthy macro-economic data points, drove the
key equity indices forward. Initially, Indian equity market opened on dismal note, but a
sharp bounce back after the five state Assembly election results drove the S&P BSE
Sensex and the NSE Nifty50 to their fourth straight session of gains.
“While the resignation (of RBI Governor Urjit Patel) took the market by surprise, leading to
concerns over the independence of RBI as an institution, the quick announcement of the
appointment of the new Governor (Shaktikanta Das) has helped allay these fears,” said
Shibani Kurian, Senior Vice President, Head of Equity Research, Kotak Mahindra Asset
Management.
The new Governor, former senior bureaucrat Shaktikanta Das, is seen close to the
present dispensation at the Centre. Another key theme of the week was normalisation of
Brent Crude oil price to around $60 after a short-term upward mobility due to OPEC
production cut announcement.
“Crude oil production cut by OPEC was below expectation which had sparked a short-
term volatility, but normalised subsequently. Also, US inventories have gone down this
week,” Anuj Gupta, Deputy Vice President – Research, Commodities and Forex, Angel
Broking, told IANS.
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reason
“We expect the (crude) prices will increase now as the actual affect of the production cut
will start to show from January.”
However, towards the end of the week, advances were capped across the globe as
growth concerns grew after China, the world’s second-largest economy, reported slowing
retail growth.
Consequently, global equity markets ended the week on a negative note. In terms of
investments, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers during the review as they
off-loaded a total of Rs 2,067.19 crore worth of shares, while domestic institutional
investors (DIIs) sold scrips worth Rs 153.21 crore, provisional data from the BSE showed.
Index-wise, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 289.68 points, or 0.81 per cent, to close at
35,962.93 points, whereas the 50-share NSE Nifty advanced 111.75 points, or 1.04 per
cent, to settle at 10,805.45 points.
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Similarly, the local currency also gained in the past week. The rupee strengthened by 1.1
to 71.90 against the US dollar from its previous week’s close of 70.80.
According to HDFC Securities’ Retail Research Head Deepak Jasani: “Technically, with
the Nifty rallying higher for the fourth consecutive session, the bulls remain in control.
Further upsides are likely in the coming week once the immediate resistances of 10,941
points are taken out.”
“Crucial supports to watch for any weakness are at 10,588 points.”
On a weekly basis, the top gainers on the BSE and the NSE were Yes Bank and Hero
Moto Corp which gained over 8 per cent each, followed by ONGC, SBI, Bharti Airtel and
Mahindra and Mahindra, which gained in the range of 4 to 5 per cent.
In contrast, HDFC lost 2.46 per cent, the most during the week. It was followed by Kotak
Mahindra Bank, Reliance Industries, Adani Ports and HDFC
Expectations from the new RBI Governor
July 8, 2016, 12:36 PM IST Ashima Goyal in Finding the Center | Economy, India | ET
June suffered from a surfeit of exits. But none of them lived up to forecasts of dire
consequences, at least for India. Indian markets have shrugged off both Rexit and Brexit for
now. And since markets are forward-looking it implies they do not foresee problems due to
these exits in the future either.
India, and its institutions, have strengthened and diversified so that they are more immune to
one event or person. Development means sufficient depth to withstand shocks. The outgoing
RBI governor has also contributed to building this resilience. Diversification means these are
normally sufficient positives to counteract a few negatives. Soft oil prices, a pick-up in
reforms, and good rains continue to put India in a sweet spot. Inflation has fallen although
growth remains below capacity. Institutional investors want low deficits, low inflation and a
strong currency, but they also value higher growth. They need not, therefore, be perturbed by
a new governor who gives more weight to growth. Moreover, he will be doing this
constrained by the inflation targeting framework.
The flexible inflation targeting is an example of institutional strengthening. Not only will it
constrain the governor but also it will make his views on the policy rate less important.
Implementation by a monetary policy committee will make for more continuity.
But the person at the top makes a big difference in any complex system since interpretation
and direction are very influential. Under governor Rajan the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) did
better in reducing vulnerabilities and in building foundations for future growth than in
managing the cycle, partly because he believed more in the efficacy of micro-structural and
financial reforms in building for future growth than in trying to stabilize current growth. His
priority was to make India a low inflation economy.
Therefore what kind of beliefs, experience, and training should the new governor ideally
have? What are the areas he must attend to? Freedom from ideology is necessary-he must be
neither a hawk nor a dove. Else he would tend to neglect data and context in favour of fixed
priors. Knowledge of macroeconomics adapted to the intricacies of a more open Indian
economy, as well as of the financial sector and domestic and international reform initiatives
in the sector, is required. Paying careful attention to the data and to special features of the
Indian economy, rather than blindly applying preconceptions or concepts honed in different
economies, is very important in a heterogeneous economy, especially in one implementing
inflation targeting for the first time.
The RBI interacts almost exclusively with the financial sector, but makes policy for the
nation as a whole. So the governor has to make a special effort to be sensitive to the needs of
broad constituencies. The interests of different constituencies are often in conflict and have to
be balanced. While savers and foreign investors benefit from high interest rates, workers,
industry and consumers want lower rates. The room available for change commensurate with
different objectives, keeping the national interest foremost, is often small and has to be
quickly seized. There has to be awareness of policy impact on different parts of the system,
and of interaction across parts.
For example, reducing unemployment gets neglected in India partly because it is poorly
measured. A thin quarterly employment survey available does show employment growth
remained below 2010 levels. There was a rise in 2015 but the fall in export growth hit it
again. There is excess labour supply because of rural outmigration and especially as ten
million young enter the labour force every year. Although structural reform is required in
India, demand shocks also need to be smoothed. Stabilization of such shocks is the essence of
good macroeconomic policy. Otherwise there is an unnecessary sacrifice of output and
employment-many young lives loose the opportunity to flower. It is often said that a small
fall in interest rates is not material for firms’ investment decisions. But interest rates do affect
consumer durable and housing loans-areas where there is excess capacity. And higher sales
affect firms’ demand and their decision to invest.
In Indian conditions where food prices and other supply-side bottlenecks push-up costs and
prices while monetary tightening largely reduces demand and output, tightening has to be
kept as mild as possible, accompanied by coordinated action from the government to reduce
costs. The interest rate can be lowered in line with any fall in costs and inflation. The new
governor, therefore, must be able to work well with the government, even as he clearly
communicates what components of inflation the RBI can affect and for what the
responsibility lies with the government-and therefore how future inflation can be expected to
evolve conditional on policy actions. Good communication is essential to help anchor
expectations of inflation and give predictability to markets. For credibility a framework in
which inflation targeting is expected to work has to be clearly articulated.
For example, food inflation is normally volatile but does not have persistent effects on
inflation. It is only if it is sustained above double digits that rural wages rise and inflation
becomes persistent. The current bout of food inflation is likely to be transitory since wages
are not rising, and the monsoon promises to be normal. Policy rate setting should therefore to
able to afford to look through the food price rise. But given India’s large population for which food is a major
part of the consumption basket, non-inflationary income growth is only possible if
bottlenecks and supply-side disruptions in food production are removed. Continuing and
effective government action in this area is therefore also necessary for monetary policy to
look through a food price rise.
India has a mix of backward and forward-looking behaviour. This implies change in policy
rates must be fast because of lagged effects, but they need not be large. The announced future
direction can affect behaviour today, in a cumulative series of small steps that add up to a
large change, while leaving room for learning and for adapting to shocks. A smaller
cumulative change affects demand as financial deepening improves transmission. The overall
change also has to be small to the extent monetary policy does not want to create a large
reduction in demand, but anchor inflation expectations with complementary supply-side
measures.
As the regulator of banks and payment systems, the governor will have to continue the
process of improving accountability, innovation and inclusion. The emphasis must be on
prudential regulation that creates better incentives, and reduces regulatory delay. The
coordination between macro-prudential and monetary policy also needs to be improved. Even
as domestic systems are made more robust, the new governor must engage with international
fora to ensure emerging market interests are reflected in reforms.
Against :
Knowledge can be part of your skill set not whole of it: Knowledge is one
of the asset to accumulate but it does not mean it is the only thing you should
focus upon, for example positive outlook about life can help you succeed ,
often said " your energy introduces you before you speak" . You use your
energy to find new and innovative ways to do what you feel needs to be done.
Expressing knowledge is difficult : We often encounter in debates and
discussions some people are reallly influential in terms of points they make and
others just talk impressively but worthless, that is the power of good speech
delivery where the speaker is called and appraised for just good communication
and not knowledge.
Life experiences over subjective knowledge :In a survey when asked how
often people used their core subject knowledge in the day to day lives and
answers that came across were- hardly /never. And the same question when
asked about their skills application in the daily course the respondents gave it
90 % weightage. Which brings us to a subtle conclusion that skills
people acquire are substantially more important to them than the knowledge
from their Core subjects.
Good health as an asset: leads to success even if you never have encountered
the formal education,meaning that it not the only skill you want to accumulate.
Knowledge is an important skilll agreed but there are other things like application of
knowledge , commmunication of ideas , which are needed in order to thrive.
Chris MyersContributor
Patience pays off.DAWN ARMFIELD, UNSPLASH
It may be a bit of a generalization, but I don’t think that I’m out of line when I say that
entrepreneurs, on balance, are an impatient bunch.
In order to build a successful business, you have to hustle and be somewhat of a hard-charger.
Impatience, unsurprisingly, is a common byproduct of the entrepreneurial mindset.
I know that I certainly used to fall into this category. It was only after several years of
running BodeTree that I came to realize that in business, patience truly is a virtue.
I have a tendency to rapidly evaluate situations as I encounter them, which is both a blessing
and a curse. In the best cases, this rapid assessment enables me to quickly grasp a situation
and plot a path forward.
In the worst cases, however, this rapid-fire though process creates a chasm between me and
the people I’m working with. When this happens, I find myself jumping forward to a
conclusion while others are still processing the information at hand.
This “ready, aim, fire” syndrome is all too common amongst entrepreneurs, and while
sometimes it leads to rapid iteration and growth, more often than not it results in problems.
Impatience is self-sabotage
When you jump to a hasty conclusion, you end up creating an artificial timeline in your mind.
When people or processes fail to align to that timeline, the mind can run wild.
You begin to question the motives and intentions of the people on the other side of the
equation and put forth ultimatums that may or may not be considered reasonable. This often
leads to two unfortunate outcomes.
First, impatience makes you look desperate. Pushing a partner too aggressively or issuing
unreasonable ultimatums is extremely off putting. In my experience, I’ve found that such
actions come across as a major red flag to external parties. More often than not, it kills the
deal.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, this kind of impatience is the ultimate self-sabotage. It
clouds the judgement, detracts from your credibility, and damages relationships.
I’m particularly guilty of this behavior. Several years ago, my co-founder and I were
approached by a public technology company looking to acquire BodeTree. The deal would
have been transformative and extremely lucrative, but the due diligence process seemed to
drag on for longer than necessary.
In my naïveté, I adopted a “take it or leave it” stance with the other company. Unsurprisingly,
they opted to “leave it.”
Looking back, I realize that I allowed my impatience to influence my actions, which in turn
ultimately scuttled the deal. It was perhaps the most powerful example of self-sabotage in my
career to-date.
One thing I’m sure of in this world is that nothing of value comes easily. In fact, anything of
value takes time, whether it’s a matter of developing a skill, building a relationship, or
launching a business initiative.
Although entrepreneurs like myself like to simplify matters as much as possible, the truth is
that the world is a complex place, full of nuance.
For example, a recent deal that saw BodeTree acquire another business took seven months
from start to finish. As far as acquisitions go, this was relatively fast, but of course it didn’t
feel that way while in the thick of the process.
I’ve said before that every deal dies three times before it closes, and this was no exception.
There were a number of instances where it appeared that the deal would fall through, and I
know that had I given into my natural impatience, they would have.
Fortunately, everyone involved was able to keep their wits about them and reach a successful
conclusion. The result was an opportunity that made sense for everyone involved. It reminded
me of the old maxim: all good things take time.
As entrepreneurs, we live in a world that values quick thinking and dynamic action. This is
not a bad thing in and of itself. However, when you allow these traits to manifest in the form
of impatience, problems arise.
As difficult as it may be, entrepreneurs must remember that patience, especially in business,
truly is a virtue.
I’m the cofounder and CEO of BodeTree, a tech-enabled franchise services company. I’m a
frequent MSNBC contributor and the author of “Enlightened Entrepreneurship.” All in all,
I’m just looking to bring a bit of Zen to the world of business. Follow me on Twitter
@chris_mye...
MORE
30.What is trolling?.
A troll is Internet slang for a person who intentionally tries to instigate
conflict, hostility, or arguments in an online social community. Platforms
targeted by trolls can include the comment sections of YouTube, forums, or
chat rooms.
Trolls will frequently try to attack something you have revealed you like or
are in favor of. If someone is trying to insult your tastes directly, or if they’re
generally bashing the topic of a forum or post, you probably have a troll on
your hands.
Another way to spot a troll is by their persistence. When trolls sense that
they’re getting an emotional response out of someone, they usually won’t
stop until they’ve gotten their victim sufficiently riled up.
Trolls are also known for their outlandish and outrageous claims. They will
often make ridiculous statements about the subject at hand, again with the
expectation that they will get an emotional response out of people. Trolls
won’t necessarily believe the outrageous claims they make, but their goal is
to convince you that they do believe it.
Typically, the best thing to do is ignore the troll. Do not engage this person in
an argument or discussion. It is exactly what trolls feed off of because they
love the attention. On well-moderated forums, an administrator should catch
trolling early and ban the offending user or delete trolling comments,
depending on how offensive they are.
If the trolling is abusive or offensive, you should be able to report trolls who
have made themselves known. How to report someone for trolling will vary
depending on the site or forum you’re on. It may be as simple as clicking
a Report button, but if all else fails you can usually use a site’s Contact
Us link to send an email letting the site's administrators know about
inappropriate behavior.
If you’ve ever been called a troll or been told to stop trolling you may have wondered not
only what that meant, but if you’re like me, where it originated from.
A troll or troller in internet slang is someone that starts arguments or upsets people by posting
off-topic or extraneous messages in some type of online community. Their goal is to cause
people to get emotional and to harass people online.
In the beginning of the Internet, the words troll and trolling had completely different
meanings. Due to the lack of knowledge found online, the world trolling was confused with
the word troll, and eventually the word troll picked up an alternative meaning. A troll is now
a person that trolls or is a troller, not to be confused with what a real troll is.
This caused quite a bit of confusion and took awhile to catch on. Trolling was actually an
intelligently derived term used to describe people online who were just looking to start an
argument.
The word trolling is a word commonly used to describe a method of fishing. In trolling, a
fisherman casts a line out into the water, usually several, and pulls them behind a boat,
hoping that he will catch something.
A troller or someone that trolls is someone that casts a line out in the Internet world in hopes
of hooking someone into an argument, pretty straight forward right?
Formatted: Font: (Default) roboto, 12 pt, Font color: Black
Unfortunately, because of less intelligent people on the Internet that were accused of trolling,
they didn’t understand the definition of the word, and thought it had something to do with
trolls. Now, when referring to someone on the Internet that starts an argument for fun, they
can either be called a Troller or a Troll, two nouns that at one time had completely different
definitions.
If you like trolling on the Internet, the next time someone calls you a troll ask them to clarify
if they mean troller or if they are calling you a troll, which is a supernatural being in Norse
mythology and Scandinavian folklore. Obviously, being called a troll should be a
compliment.
I was blessed (if that’s the proper word), with the opportunity to watch “trolling” become
“troll” over my lifetime. It’s amazing how quickly the English language changes when it
comes to slang. Up until it became official, I never understood if people were saying you
were a acting like real troll, one that lived under a bridge and surprised or threatened to harm
them.
The real definition of the word “troll” sometimes makes sense in place of the real definition
of “troller”.
Example 1:
Example 2:
In this example they are using the word troll to identify your troll like threatening behavior.
The word troll has expanded into video games, especially RTS or MOBA games where users
will intentionally mess with a game full of players just to waste their time or harass people. It
can also refer to someone that is playing people below their skill level in order to dominate
the game instead of playing against people of their own skill level.
1. It’s the price you pay for what you’re going to get.
If success was free, everyone would have it. But there are few successful
individuals and each of them had put in enough productive work before they
received anything in return.
That’s important, and it’s fair enough. While working hard on what you believe
in, you’re understanding its true value.
You begin to respect the work itself, to build some good qualities along the
way, and to learn important life lessons during it.
2. Hard work helps you build discipline.
In the beginning of your journey, you aren’t ready to handle the success and
all the responsibilities that come together with it. But earning it with sweat and
sacrifices prepares you for that. Here are some examples.
No athlete truly deserves a medal before investing years of his life into
training, before getting his body ready to endure it, before building the
qualities necessary to become a champion and developing the mindset of a
winner, the same applies to your life as well – no matter if it is at work related,
in college related or your dating life.
Successful entrepreneurs wouldn’t have been able to manage people
effectively, build products people love, run a big company, organize their time
well and work with big sums of money, if they hadn’t started from nothing and
earned the chance to get to every next step.
Millionaires also weren’t that good at handling their money, investing wisely or
networking. It took them years, trial and error, and patience to make a fortune.
So the hard work, together with the time it takes, is a must on your journey to
success. It makes you who you have to turn into in order to live the better life
that’s awaiting for you.
What’s more, the harder you work on your dream, the more confident you
become. Those who lack self-esteem also lack determination and end up
losing hope and giving up. But by investing enough energy in this daily, you
start believing in yourself more, you are sure that you’ll succeed, and you
don’t need support from others and no one can put you down anymore.
Average people spend a great deal of time waiting for things to happen. They
make countless excuses in order to postpone taking action, and are distracted
all the time.
People with goals, on the other hand, constantly do something and try new
stuff to move forward. This way, they’re creating opportunities.
A universal law is that the more you’re focused on something and take action
connected to it, the more doors you open and the more life gives you chances
to get closer to your vision.
Grabbing opportunities and making the most of them is part of working hard.
And it’s the real face of luck.
5. It gives you results.
The best measure for anything is progress. And there’s nothing else that
brings more results on a consistent basis than hard work.
What’s more, action itself leads to more action and at any moment of the day,
you’re building momentum and making sure your journey continues.
Working on your goal itself is the motivation you need to keep moving forward
and say no to distractions from daily life.
Seeing results makes you feel accomplished, grateful and truly satisfied with
what you’re doing. That makes the whole process enjoyable and you find the
strength to persevere.
Now that you know all this, there shouldn’t be a single negative thought in
your mind towards hard work. Never doubt its power and that it’s a necessity.
Instead, create your strategy, make a step-by-step plan and take the first step
towards success no later than today. You won’t regret it!
ByPatrick Banks
Patrick Banks is a Berlin based writer with over 5 years of experience providing
self-development advice. He is a fierce optimist who believes in the power of
making life happen. He shares his opinions on his self-improvement blog-
Get a Wingman
A common adage is that you need to work harder and suffer more than anyone else
if you want to achieve success.
From what I have learned from people who have accomplished big things in both
their lives and careers, one of their most common “a-ha moments” was when they
realized that working hard was not enough to succeed, and that often it was even a
waste of time and energy.
Thinking from this perspective, I have collected 3 things that just are as important, or
even more important, than hard work when it comes to achieving success.
1. Purpose
You’ve been working down in the boiler room for so long that you may not even
remember WHY.
If you examined every single person in the world who is considered a failure
(especially by themselves), you would see that all their lives lack the same
ingredient: purpose.
They don’t know where they are going. They don’t know why they do the things they
do and don’t think there can be a reason. They chase only short-term satisfactions
like food or sex, and those are the only things that keep them moving.
They are operating only out of the animal side of themselves. Thus, they are not able
to practice long-term thinking or personal analysis as human beings can.
There is no need to look at very clear cases of failure to find the disease of lack of
purpose. If you are not constantly aware, you will find yourself in the middle of doing
something and won’t know why you are doing it.
Momentum can be a good friend, but is also one of those friends that will make you
waste a ton of time if you don’t keep an eye on it.
Every time you start an action, keep in mind that you are going to keep on doing it for
the rest of your life. Unless, of course, something internal or external reminds you to
start doing something else.
When you start working on something without clearly knowing the expected results, it
may take you hours or days of hard work to realize that it isn’t what you should be
doing, if you ever want to achieve your goals.
2. Self-work
Work on yourself 10 times as hard as you work on external elements, and you will
feel that you are moving 10 times faster towards what you want.
Almost all the hard work you have to do to succeed is focused on replacing your
routines and habits with the ones a successful person would have. By deliberately
changing your procedures, you change the results you achieve, the value you
provide, and the way you are seen by yourself and the rest of the world.
If you could perform the same training and habits as Bruce Lee, day after day, there
is no doubt that you would sooner or later become a remarkable martial artist, right?
And what about performing like a person whose success in business has been
outstanding? What if you integrated the same routines and habits that have allowed
others to unlock the power and creativity they needed to succeed in their career or
life?
You could, literally, start performing like that today and get astounding results
immediately.
The only requirement is that you put your old habits and self-limiting beliefs aside,
making space for new ones.
You must look at them before you can let them go; if you don’t recognize the weeds
amongst the flowers, you won’t be able to take them out.
Success is not attained by fighting the old, but by letting it go and building the new in
its place.
3. Belief
If you don’t believe it’s possible for you to achieve what you want, you can work day
and night, but you will never succeed.
Sometimes, all the distance that seems to be separating you from your goals is in
your mind. If you removed those mental barriers, you would see that you could just
reach out and grab what you’ve been pursuing for so long.
As long as you don’t believe that it’s possible for you to have it, you are going to
keep creating excuses and distractions. That’s simply because it feels uncomfortable
or scary to have something you don’t think you are ready to have, or become
someone you don’t believe you can be.
If you removed the negative beliefs about what YOU can have and become, your
reality would change instantly.
Conclusion
I know that these three things also require hard work and focus, but the stress,
frustration and hours of pushing and shoveling they may save you are priceless.
- They attract a mass following and can sway public opinion in the right direction.
- The celebrities have been successful in their respective field and have the right ethics
- Celebrities can do a lot for the welfare of the people as they also live in amongst the
common people.
- They have the power to persuade or convince the majority to work in favor of development
of the country.
- They have a huge fan following which only makes it easier for them to operate.
Against
- Whether it is Govinda or any other actor for that matter, no one’s attendance has been up
- No one has really raised a particular issue, which has worked in the favor of the nation.
- If you were to analyze the achievements of the actors present in politics, it has been close
to negligible.
- They are already so engrossed in their lives, that it has been seen over the years that they
was nationalized and re-christened as State Bank of India (under the SBI Act, 1955). Later on July 19,
1960, the 7 subsidiaries of SBI viz. State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), State Bank of Indore, State Bank of
Saurashtra (SBS), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of
Patiala (SBP), and State Bank of Travancore (SBT) were also nationalized with deposits more than 200
crores.
In the Indian banking scenario, most public sector banks are referred to as Nationalised Banks. This
Fund), “Nationalisation” is defined as “government taking control over assets and over a
corporation, usually by acquiring the majority stake or the whole stake in the corporation”. In
1949, during the early years of the country’s independence, India’s central bank, the RBI (Reserve Bank of
India) became the first bank to be nationalised. This was an important move since the RBI would soon
become the regulatory authority for banking in India. Most Indian banks at that time were privately owned.
Thus, the Indian government then recognized the need to bring them under some form of government
With Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s taking over as the Prime Minister of India, the Indian National Congress rallied
for a state takeover of some of the major banks in the country. In what can be deemed a rather hasty move,
the government promulgated an ordinance - the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of
Undertakings) Ordinance, 1969 - thereby nationalising all the 14 banks that were under consideration with
effect from the midnight of 19 July 1969. As a follow-up to passing the ordinance, the Banking Companies
(Acquisition and Transfer of Undertaking) Bill was taken up by the Parliament for discussion. It received a
clear majority as well as the assent of the President within a month of issuing the ordinance.
In 1980, when Mrs. Gandhi was re-elected as the Prime Minister for her third term at the PMO, she
initiated the second spate of bank nationalization. This time about six banks were nationalised and the
Government of India controlled over 90 percent of the banking business in the country. Of the 20 banks
that were nationalised, New Bank of India was later (in 1993) merged with Punjab National Bank.
Similarly, IDBI Bank Ltd. is also a public sector bank but not one of the nationalised banks of India. IDBI
Bank was established in 1964 (IDBI Act, 1964) to aid developmental finance in the country. Initially, it
was a financial institution and did not participate in core banking activities. IDBI Bank was inducted into
banking in 2003 and was merged with IDBI Ltd. - a company, in which the Government of India holds
about 70-percent stake, in 2005.
1. Allahabad Bank: Founded in 1865, this is one of the oldest established joint stock banks in India.
Allahabad Bank was nationalised on July 19, 1969. The bank's total in 2016 was approximately Rs
18,884.94 crores.
2. Andhra Bank: Andhra Bank was founded in the year 1923. It is a medium-sized public sector bank
which was nationalized in April 1980. The turnover of this bank for the year 2016 was around Rs 18027.42
3. Bank of Baroda: This bank was established in 1908, some 109 years ago. The turnover raised by this
bank was Rs 42199.92 crores in 2016. Services offered by this bank are international banking and financial
services. The bank's headquarter is situated in Vadodara, Gujarat. It was nationalised in 1969.
4. Bank of India: Bank of India was established in the year 1906 and was nationalised in the year 1969.
This commercial bank is growing rapidly and provides exclusive financial services to its consumers.
Situated in Mumbai, Maharashtra, this bank earned a turnover of Rs 41796.47 crores in the year 2016.
5. Bank of Maharashtra: This bank was founded in the year 1935 and its headquarter is in Pune, India.
It is a private sector bank, which has the largest number of branches in the state of Maharashtra. Bank of
Maharashtra was nationalised in the year 1969 and accumulated a total turnover of Rs 13052.98 crores in
6. Canara Bank: Canara Bank is one of the oldest public sector banks. The bank has branches in other
countries such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Moscow, etc. It was established in the year 1906 and was
nationalised in the year 1969. The total turnover generated by this bank was Rs 48942 crores in 2016.
7. Central Bank of India: It was founded in the year 1911 and was nationalized in 1969. The
headquarter of this bank is in Mumbai, the financial capital of India. The bank earned a turnover of Rs
8. Corporation Bank: Corporation Bank is 111 years old. It was established in the year 1906. Its
headquarter is in Mangalore and also has representative branches in Hong Kong, Dubai etc. This bank was
nationalised in the year 1980 and produced a turnover of Rs 19441.24 crores in 2016.
9. Dena Bank: This bank was founded in 1938 by Devkaran Nanjee and was nationalised in 1969. It
generated a total turnover of Rs 10645.73 crores in 2016, although in 2017 it has started making losses. It
10. Indian bank: One of the top performing public sector banks in India, Indian Bank was founded on 15
August 1907. It has its headquarters in Chennai, India. It also has overseas branches in Colombo and
Singapore. The bank was nationalized in 1969 and generated revenue of Rs 7370.16 crores in 2016.
11. Indian Overseas Bank: This major public sector bank is situated in Chennai, India, and provides
banking services at various places like Dubai, Bangkok, Shanghai, to name a few. It was established in the
year 1937 and was nationalized in 1969. The total turnover of this bank is Rs 23517.29 crores in 2016.
12. Oriental Bank of Commerce: OBC or Oriental Bank of Commerce was founded in Lahore in
1943. Currently, it is headquartered in Gurugram, India. It has generated a turnover of Rs 20,058.71 crores
13. Punjab and Sind Bank: This bank was founded in 1908 and provides banking and financial
services all over India. The bank generated a turnover of Rs 8744.34 crores in 2016. Punjab and Sind Bank
14. Punjab National Bank: Punjab National Bank was founded in the year 1894 and is one of the
oldest banks. It has its branches in UK, Dubai, Kabul etc. It was nationalised in the year 1969. The total
India. It has its headquarters in Manipal, India. The turnover generated by Syndicate bank in 2016 was Rs
6913.09 crores.
16. UCO Bank: UCO Bank or United Commercial Bank was established in 1943. This bank was
nationalized in 1969. It had a turnover of Rs 18560.97 crores in the year 2016 and is one of the most
17. Union Bank of India: This bank was initiated in 1919 and was nationalized in 1980. It generated a
revenue of Rs 32198.80 crores in the year 2016. It has its representative offices in Shanghai, Abu Dhabi,
Beijing, etc.
18. United Bank of India: United Bank of India was founded 1950 and was nationalised in 1969.
Headquartered in Kolkata, this bank was able to generate a turnover of Rs 9936.67 crores in 2016.
19. Vijaya Bank: This bank was established in 1931 in Mangalore, India, but now has its headquarters in
Bengaluru. It generated a revenue of Rs. 12379 crores in the year 2016. It was nationalized in the year
1980. It provides facilities like consumer banking, corporate banking, banking and finance services etc.
Bad debt
The two methods used in estimating bad debt expense are 1) Percentage of
sales and 2) Percentage of receivables.
1. Percentage of Sales
On March 31, 2017, Corporate Finance Institute reported net credit sales of
$1,000,000. Using the percentage of sales method, they estimated that 1%
of their credit sales would be uncollectible.
2. Percentage of Receivables
Bad debt expense is something that must be recorded and accounted for
every time a company prepares its financial statements. When a company
decides to leave it out, they overstate their assets and they could even
overstate their net income.
Bad debt expense also helps companies identify which customers default
on payments more often than others. If a company does decide to use a
loyalty system or a credibility system, they can use the information from the
bad debt accounts to identify which customers are creditworthy and offer
them discounts for their timely payments.
These data help understand the nature of India’s farm crisis in the light of the recent
spate of farmer protests across states to demand loan waivers and better prices for their
crops.
These 62.6 million households spending more than they earn had land holdings of one
hectare or less, according to the 2013 situation assessment survey of farm households
by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the latest available data. In contrast, 0.35
million (0.39%) households owning more than 10 hectares of land had an average
monthly income of Rs 41,338 and consumption expenditure of Rs 14,447, thereby
maintaining a monthly surplus of Rs 26,941.
Nearly 85% of all operational farm holdings in the country are smaller than two hectares
in size, NSSO data show.
No more than a third of Indian small and marginal farmers have access to institutional
credit, as IndiaSpend reported on June 8, 2017, which suggests that loan waivers may
not help them.
Source: Ministry of Statistics and Programme ImplementationNote: ‘Income’ includes earnings from all sources,
including non-farm business and wage labour
Andhra Pradesh has the highest share of indebted agricultural households (93%),
followed by Telangana (89%) and Tamil Nadu (82.1%). The nationwide figure is 52%.
Indebtedness was listed as the primary reason for 55% of farmer suicides in 2015 and
more than 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since
1995, IndiaSpend reported on January 2, 2017.
Apart from meagre farm income, rising healthcare costs increase farmer debt.
Outstanding loans for health reasons have doubled from 3% in 2002 to 6% in 2012,
according to a 2015 analysis of NSSO data by the National Bank For Agriculture and
Rural Development (NABARD). Meanwhile, loans for farm business fell by half over a
decade, from 58% in 2002 to 29% in 2012, as IndiaSpend reported on July 21, 2015.
Nearly half (48%) of overnight trips made by millions of Indians in rural areas are for
medical purposes.
“In all the farm households I’ve visited, where people have killed themselves, the single
largest component of family debt was health costs,” said P Sainath, Ramon Magsaysay
Award winner who pioneered farmer suicide reporting in India.
Recently, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra wrote off loans worth Rs 36,359 crore and Rs
30,000 crore, respectively. India faces a cumulative loan waiver of Rs 3.1 lakh crore
($49.1 billion), or 2.6% of the country’s gross domestic product in 2016-
17, IndiaSpend reportedon June 15, 2017.
However, indebtedness is a symptom and not the root cause of India’s farm crisis,
according to a 2007 expert group report on agricultural indebtedness. Chaired by
economist R Radhakrishna, the group reported that the average farm household
borrowing had not been “excessive”, and laid the blame on factors such as “stagnation
in agriculture, increasing production and marketing risks, institutional vacuum and lack of
alternative livelihood opportunities”.
In his 2016 budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had promised to double
farmers’ income by 2022. “We are grateful to our farmers for being the backbone of the
country’s food security. We need to think beyond food security and give back to our
farmers a sense of income security. Government will, therefore, reorient its interventions
in the farm and non-farm sectors to double the income of the farmers by 2022,” he had
said.
These efforts face a range of challenges, as IndiaSpend said in this March 30,
2016, story. These include: Increasing costs of farm input such as seeds, fertilisers and
irrigation; irrelevance of minimum support price for government procurement; absence of
marketing infrastructure such as warehouses and cold storages; and the fact that 85% of
farmers do not have insurance.
Clearly, India’s farm crisis calls for a multi-pronged solution that addresses each of these
challenges, and loan waiver is only one part.
Will
The will specified in which fields the prizes should be awarded –
physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature and peace – and
which criteria the respective prize committees should apply when
choosing their prize recipients. According to the will the Nobel Peace
Prize was to be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most
or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition
or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of
peace congresses.”
Nobel Foundation
In Sweden, however, Nobel's will triggered a lengthy legal battle with
parts of the Nobel family. It was not until this conflict had been
resolved, and financial matters had been satisfactorily arranged
through the establishment of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden in
1900, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee and the other prize-
awarding bodies could begin their work.
First award
The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901. The Peace Prize for that
year was shared between the Frenchman Frédéric Passy and the
Swiss Jean Henry Dunant.
Billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi is at the centre of the over $2 billion PNB fraud. Photo:
Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint
The bank’s CEO Sunil Mehta told Reuters in April he had suspended 21
officials and “will not spare” others found involved in lapses, but he also
described the fraud as a “small turmoil”.
However, a 162-page internal report, produced by PNB officials tasked with
probing the fraud, lays bare lapses that go far beyond a few branch officers.
The report, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, lays out how failings
by 54 PNB officials—ranging from clerks to foreign exchange managers,
and auditors to heads of regional offices, allowed the fraud to be
perpetrated. Eight of the 54 are among those who have been charged by the
federal police for their roles in the scandal.
The bank’s CEO Sunil Mehta told Reuters in April he had suspended 21 officials and
“will not spare” others found involved in lapses, but he also described the fraud as a
‘small turmoil’. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint
The report, which the PNB officials presented to the bank’s fraud risk
management arm on 5 April, along with dozens of pages of annexed bank
records and internal e-mails, is also part of the evidence submitted by the
federal police in its court case against those allegedly involved in the fraud.
The report’s findings have not previously been made public.
Damning conclusions
The unearthing of the fraud in January has not only exposed shortcomings
in the management of PNB, but has also undermined confidence in India’s
state-run banking sector, which controls over two-thirds of the nation’s
bank assets.
The damning conclusions of the report stand in contrast to the lack of
regulatory action taken by the authorities since the fraud was reported. No
penalty has been imposed on PNB as a result of the fraud and there has
been no senior management shake-up.
Gitanjali Gems promoter Mehul Choksi colluded with nephew Nirav Modi to obtain fake
letters of undertaking, or LoUs, to perpetrate the PNB fraud. Photo: Mint
A PNB spokesman told Reuters the bank “cannot share details on a sub-
judice case”. He added: “We must reiterate that we will not spare anybody
who is found guilty irrespective of the level or position in the bank,” he said.
PNB did not respond to a question about what action was taken against the
“erring” officials mentioned in the report. The Reserve Bank of India and
the Indian government’s federal banking secretary, Rajiv Kumar, didn’t
respond to requests for comment.
The report does not say whether the PNB investigators believe those
involved in the monitoring failures were aware of the fraud.
Also read: How Nirav Modi pulled off the great Indian bank
robbery
Significantly, they said one of the reasons the fraud went undetected for
years was because of lapses within some of the bank’s critical areas at its
New Delhi headquarters, such as its credit review and international
banking units.
“There was enough evidence to suggest failures,” the team of four senior
PNB investigators said in its report. “It was observed that blatant system
violations/unethical practices/dereliction of responsibilities led bank to
such a catastrophe.”
The Brady House branch, the epicentre of the over $2 billion PNB fraud. Photo: Abhijit
Bhatlekar/Mint
Modi and Choksi, both of whom left India before PNB filed its first police
complaint on 29 January, have denied any wrongdoing. Shetty’s lawyer has
said his client is not guilty.
All face charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating, as well as allegations
under India’s prevention of corruption law.
Lack of integration
Shetty escaped detection because he did not log his SWIFT transactions on
the bank’s internal software—something he was supposed to do because the
two systems were not integrated.
Former PNB employee Gokulnath Shetty helped Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi obtain
the fake LoUs that they used to perpetrate the PNB fraud. Photo: AFP
But more simply, the fraud could have been detected if the branch did the
basic daily SWIFT reconciliation that, according to internal rules, required
logs of transactions on the global payments network to be manually
checked against the bank’s internal system, the investigators said.
“Only one activity would have nailed the whole act at the incipient stage,”
said the report.
As per protocol, the daily reconciliation reports should travel up the chain
to PNB’s headquarters in New Delhi. Along the way, they would be signed
off by the Brady House branch head and sent each month to a Mumbai city
regional office that would issue all-clear certificates for the branches it
controls.
But despite receiving just two of the 12 monthly reports from the Brady
House branch last year, the regional office signed off on a “false”
compliance certificate, signalling a clean bill of health for the branch, the
report said.
Its import and export transactions in the 12 months to March 2017 stood at
$3.3 billion, 50% higher than recorded two years prior. “The exceptional
growth should have been noticed,” the report said.
Four years later, in 2016, the branch’s assistant general manager issued an
internal memo saying around 18 observations—five described as zero-
tolerance level issues—were pending. The memo was signed by 10 bank
officers, including Shetty.
Late-night emails
Shetty joined the forex division at Brady House in April 2010. In March
2011, the branch issued the first fake credit guarantees of $15.5 million to
Modi’s firms through SWIFT messages, bypassing the internal banking
system, the PNB investigators said.
Over the coming years, Shetty authorized more than 1200 fraudulent credit
guarantees, the report said.
Also read: PNB fraud explained: How India’s 2nd largest PSU
bank lost Rs11,400 crore
In the few weeks before his retirement in May last year, Shetty used his
personal Yahoo e-mail address to send 22 e-mails—18 at around midnight—
to reconcile large forex transactions involving the Modi group. The use of
personal e-mail was “overlooked” by the bank’s treasury department, the
report said.
Under PNB policy, no officer should remain in the same office for more
than three years, but Shetty retired after serving in Brady House for seven
years. Three transfer orders were issued for him during his tenure, but he
was never moved, the investigators found.
The report said that it is “incomprehensible” that branch staff did not
notice the fraud being committed.
PNB fraud: Punjab National Bank, India`s second-biggest state-run lender, stunned
the country`s financial sector this month when it announced it had discovered an
alleged fraud worth Rs 11, 400 crore ($1.8 billion) at a single branch in Mumbai. The
fraud, by far the biggest ever detected by an Indian bank, comes to light at a time
when lenders - especially state-run banks - are hobbled by $147 billion in soured
loans on their books, a problem that has slowed lending and hurt the economy.
The following is an explainer on the PNB fraud and its implications for other lenders
and India`s banking sector:
In a regulatory filing on Feb. 14, the bank updated the sum involved in the fraud to
113.94 billion rupees ($1.77 billion), which it said was determined after further
investigation.
The bank alleges that two junior employees at its Brady House branch in Mumbai
colluded with companies belonging to Modi and Choksi, and issued fraudulent
"letters of undertaking", or LoUs, without asking for any margin money as security,
even though the firms did not have any pre-approved credit limit.
The firms, PNB says, raised short-term credit from overseas branches of other
Indian banks based on these LoUs, and in some instances fraudulent foreign letters
of credit (FLCs) in favour of foreign suppliers.
It then found that two junior employees had issued LOUs over the SWIFT interbank
messaging system without entering any of these transactions on the bank`s own
system. Such transactions went on for years without detection, PNB said.
Bankers say in many Indian banks the SWIFT system, which is used for international
transactions, and the core banking system work independently of each other. In
PNB`s case, it said the outstanding LoUs were not available on its core banking
system run on Infosys`s Finacle software, and so went undetected.
Modi`s companies colluded with the bank staff, PNB said, adding that it suspected
some officials at foreign branches of other Indian banks that extended credit were
also involved. It also named Gitanjali Gems, Gili India and Nakshatra - companies
promoted by Choksi.
A lawyer for Modi has denied any wrongdoing by his client. Modi himself has not
commented publicly, but wrote to PNB in a letter, a copy of which was seen by
Reuters, that his firms owed "substantially less" than the total exposure reported by
the bank.
Gitanjali has also denied Choksi`s involvement in the fraud. Choksi, in an open letter
to employees on Friday, maintained his innocence and advised them to look for
other jobs, as his assets had been seized and he was unable to pay salaries.
The Reserve Bank of India this week wrote to banks asking them to ensure their
SWIFT system was integrated with their main banking software by April 30.
The finance ministry has also written to banks telling them to take effective steps to
avoid any similar fraud. The government has said it will not spare wrongdoers in the
PNB case.
Several banks that extended loans based on the PNB guarantees and are at risk of
losing money want PNB to pay up, according to banking sources.
In a Feb 12 "caution notice" addressed to chief executives of 30 banks, PNB said the
other banks also have a share in the blame as they "overlooked" certain Indian
central bank rules.
PNB has said it is following all "lawful avenues available" to recover its dues and it
has asked Modi to respond with a "concrete and implementable" repayment plan.
“The autonomy for the Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential
and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected
this. Both the Government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by
public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose, extensive
consultation son several issues take place between the Government and the RBI from time to
time. This is equally true of all other regulators. Government of India has never made public
the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated.
The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests
possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so.”
The Government asked RBI for a review of its Economic Capital Framework (ECF)
adopted in 2016. As per press release by RBI on 19.11.2018, the Board has decided to
constitute an Expert Committee to examine the ECF, the membership and terms of reference
of which will be jointly determinedly the Government and RBI and that RBI should consider
a scheme for restructuring of stressed standard assets of MSME borrowers with aggregate
credit facilities of up to Rs. 25 crore, subject to conditions for ensuring financial stability.
The details of RBI surplus transferred to the Government during the last five years are as
follows:
This was stated by Shri Shiv Pratap Shukla, Minister of State for Finance in a written reply to
a question in Lok Sabha today.
RBI Autonomy: Is the Government out to
Impound its Autonomous Status?
Recent developments have subsided the prospects of rift between RBI and the Government. The
earlier event indicating the beginning of conflict between the Apex Monetary Authority The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Financial Authority – Ministry of Finance-Govt of India had
sparked speculations that the Governor of RBI, Mr Urjit Patel could step down as the RBI feels
that Government which should not interfere in its Monetary affairs in keeping and improving the
monetary position of the country to a healthy and globally competitive standard, was trying to
make unnecessary intervention that may hamper its autonomous working.
With the marathon meeting of RBI Board held on Nov 19, 2018, the Government and the RBI
both decided not to follow the path of confrontation and arrive at certain decision for good of the
economy and keep the confronting issues in abeyance.
This has become a hot economic topic for Group Discussion (GD) Round as well as for Writing
Ability Test (WAT) in various competitive exams. Experts have gathered the key facts on the
topic and suggest to use the content carefully as per the GD or WAT requirements.
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Back-Ground
Reserve Bank of India, the central bank of the country is an autonomous organization responsible
for all the key monetary roles like Monetary controls, money supply regulation, foreign
exchange, apex lender to Government, a bankers’ bank among others. RBI was created and is
governed with the RBI Act and as such is a statutory autonomous entity.
However, in October 2018, the Ministry of Finance, Government of India moved to invoke
Section 7 of the RBI Act. The Section 7 gives powers to the government to seek consultations
with RBI. If necessary, the Government may issue certain binding orders on RBI in public
interest. Despite keeping its existence in RBI Act, this section has never posed any threat to RBI
Auotonomy earlier as it has never been invoked even during the times of Wars fought with
Pakistan and China; during the adverse balance of payment crisis or even during the period of
demonetization that happened on November 8, 2016.
The three letters under Section 7, that were sent by the Government of India to Reserve Bank of
India for consultation included the issues like Capital Adequacy Norms for Banks governed by
RBI, Liquidity Crisis, Credit to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Corrective
measures for weak banks among others.
Promptly responding to these letters of GoI, the Reserve Bank of India remained firm on its
stance and did not commit for the changes as desired by the Government in its policy and action
plan.
The series of events after this communication let the problem aggravate and it is being speculated
that the autonomy of the apex Monetary Authority of India, RBI is at stake and as a result the
Head of RBI – Mr Urjit Patel may step down. During all this controversy, Mr Arun Jaitley, the
Finance Minister of India has asserted that the Government respects the RBI Autonomy and also
feels it is necessary to maintain. Accordingly, the finance ministry has not yet given direction to
the RBI to follow the instructions issued by it while invoking the Section 7 of RBI Act.
What is Section 7 of RBI Act 1934?
The Section 7 of RBI Act has three parts. The most relevant first part which has sparked the
tensions between RBI and the Government, states: “The central government may from time to
time give such directions to the Bank (RBI) as it may, after consultation with the governor of the
bank, consider necessary in the public interest.”
The Part two of the section 7 of RBI Act says, “Subject to any such directions, the general
superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank shall be entrusted to a
central board of directors, which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be
exercised or done by the Bank.”
It is also contemplated that the government might have drawn inspiration for using the Section 7
from a recent judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Allahabad delivered in a case filed by
power producers against the RBI’s February circular that mandates early detection and time-
bound resolution of stressed assets. The High Court had asked the finance ministry to have
consultations with the RBI within 15 days, under Section 7 of the RBI Act 1934 to resolve the
issue.
The RBI has given the instructions that the banks should maintain capital-to-risky asset ratio
(CRAR), including capital-conservation buffer, at 11.5% — 1 percentage point higher than Basel
norms. Besides, the common equity tier (CET)-1 of banks is required to be at least 5.5% of its
risk-weighted assets — again 1 percentage point higher than the global norms.
However, the ministry of Finance wants the stipulation aligned with the international practices
also, so that banks can lend more and add to economic growth.
Delivering the AD Shroff memorial lecture, Acharya said governments that did not respect their
central banks' independence would sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets. The much
discussed famous speech, ‘On the Importance of Independent Regulatory Institution – The Case
of the Central Bank’, by Acharya reaches a host of issues.
The content of the speech which confronts the Government on all the issues against its move to
undermine the autonomy of RBI has aroused unprecedented media response. Acharya’s speech
reveals that he has also spoken for the restoration of RBI autonomy and built a strong and
positive case for RBI independence in three important areas — monetary policy, debt
management, and exchange rate management.
Acharya has pointed out that the breaking down of the RBI autonomy is associated with the
context of regulation of public sector banks, absence of rules of transfer of surpluses from the
RBI to government and recommendations to bypass the RBI’s powers over payment and
settlement systems.
Since RBI performs several functions as a central bank like the role of monetary authority, banker
to the government, debt manager to the government, monopoly issuer of legal tender currency,
the custodian of payment systems and the regulator of banks, all these functions are critical for
growth, macroeconomic stability and financial stability.
Acharya has pointed out that RBI faces constraints in the regulatory framework as well as in
implementation of the regulatory decisions in the regulation of banks, particularly public sector
banks. These limitations are related to asset divestiture, replacement of management and boards,
licence revocation and resolution actions such as merger or sales.
In another speech, on October 12, titled ‘Prompt Corrective Action: An Essential Element of
Financial Stability Framework’ Acharya warned the Government against on diluting the risk
threshold set out by the RBI in various indicators.
While the RBI has insisted on Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) as a regulatory framework to
ensure a healthy banking system for long-term growth, macroeconomic stability and financial
stability, the Government, if it does not respect central bank independence will sooner or later
incur wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire and come to rue the day they undermine the
regulatory institutions.
Acharya said that the government's horizon of decision-making was rendered short, like the
duration of a T20 match, by several considerations.
RBI Autonomy at Stake: Experts’ Views
The autonomy of the central bank has not been debated for the first time in the Indian context.
Governor after governor has raised this issue.
YV Reddy, former RBI Governor said, “A central bank is not expected to be subordinate to the
government.” Adding further he said, “My single objective is to protect the Indian economy from
the Government of India.” He also said, “The jurisdiction of the RBI over public sector banks,
relative to private sector banks, has been restricted by law. The exercise of regulatory authority is
constrained in practice.”
Raghuram Rajan has also criticized the undue interference of the Government in RBI working.
He said “India needs a strong and independent RBI to ensure macroeconomic stability”.
Former RBI Governor D Subbarao sarcastically commenting on Government’s interference in
RBI working, said, “But thank God, the Reserve Bank exists.”
On the move of Government to belittle the autonomy of RBI, Dr Raguram Rajan has pointed out,
“The RBI Governor, as the technocrat with responsibility for the nation’s economic risk
management, is not simply another bureaucrat or regulator, and efforts to belittle the position by
bringing regulatory hierarchy are misguided and do not serve national interest.”
Experts feel that the RBI needs to maintain a strong balance sheet to perform its functions
effectively. The perception that the RBI capital is in excess of what generally other central banks
have is because of the amounts held in the currency and gold revaluation account (which stood at
`5.29 lakh crore on June 30, 2017). The gains arising out of revaluation of foreign currency assets
are notional and cannot be treated as free reserves that could be transferred to the government.
In view of all the experts, the Government, as a political entity, needs advice which is in the best
interest of sustaining growth, maintaining macroeconomic stability and financial stability. More
than 80 years of RBI history is witness to the fact that the RBI is the right organisation to advise
the government in this regard. Let the government not treat the RBI as its subordinate.
While the RBI frames the monetary policies in the long-term interest of the nation, the
government tends to believe that RBI will sing to its tunes as it has made the apex appointments
in the bank
The Government’s priorities due to upcoming elections may change to deliver on proclaimed
manifestos of the past. The Government may need deliver on populist alternatives as its manifesto
could not delivered upon. But that cannot be the priority of RBI.
RBI should not be directly subjected to political time-pressures and the induced neglect of the
future. The government should stop using the RBI against the interests of the Nation and let RBI
do its jobs as per statutes, mandates, practises
RBI and Government Interface: Instances of Support
RBI has put in place a rule-based ‘staggered surplus distribution policy’ (SSDP) in FY18. The
central bank transferred `50,000 crore surplus in two installments, `10,000 crore in March 2018,
to help the Centre tide over a tight fiscal crunch and the remaining amount in August to reduce
the impact of cyclicality in the RBI’s economic capital levels on the surplus transferable to the
government.
Government should understand that RBI has to take the stressed banks out of the dilemma by
taking various measures. Acharya recently said that without the PCA imposition, some banks
would have witnessed even higher losses and required even higher taxpayer money for re-
capitalisation.
11 of the 21 public-sector banks are on the RBI’s watchlist for battered financial position. Under
the PCA guidelines, stressed banks operate under some tough conditions. The lenders are
stopped from expanding their branch networks and need to maintain higher provisions. They
may be stopped from lending until they correct their finances.
RBI has also recently made public its dissent note on certain recommendations of a government
panel under the economic affairs secretary that opposed the idea of setting up an independent
regulator outside the central bank to deal with issues relating to payments.
As regards monetary policy, the introduction of inflation targeting and constitution of the
Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) are examples of effective and efficient government and
central bank interface.
Abolition of automatic monetisation, implying RBI financing the deficit of the government and
the introduction of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act again are
landmark decisions jointly taken by the RBI and the government, strengthening the RBI
independence.
The decision of the government to keep the desired exchange rate management with the RBI is
another example of strong and positive example for building central bank autonomy.
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan in his reply to Parliamentary Panel over
rising NPAs problems in banks had said that during his tenure, a list including
names of high-profile defaulters was being sent to the Prime Minister's office. "
The RBI set up a fraud monitoring cell when I was Governor to coordinate the
early reporting of fraud cases to the investigative agencies. I also sent a list of high
profile cases to the PMO urging that we coordinate action to bring at least one or
two to book. I am not aware of progress on this front. This is a matter that should
be addressed with urgency", Rajan said.
Earlier on Tueaday, Union Minister Smriti Irani launched a scathing attack on the
Congress over former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan's
remarks that most bad loans that account for Indian banks' Non Performing Assets
(NPA) originated during the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) regime between
2006 and 2008.
However, it should be noted that Raghuram Rajan blamed both the UPA and NDA
governments' slow decision making. Project cost overruns escalated for stalled
projects and they became increasingly unable to service debt, he said, adding the
continuing travails of the stranded power plants, even though India is short of
power, suggests government decision making has not picked up sufficient pace to
date.
He further said a larger number of bad loans were originated in the period 2006-
2008 when economic growth was strong, and previous infrastructure projects such
as power plants had been completed on time and within budget.
"It is at such times that banks make mistakes. They extrapolate past growth and
performance to the future. So, they are willing to accept higher leverage in
projects, and less promoter equity. Indeed, sometimes banks signed up to lend
based on project reports by the promoter's investment bank, without doing their
own due diligence," he said.
Rajan's reply came after in August, a parliamentary committee looking into the
issue of mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) has saught former RBI Governor
Raghuram Rajan to appear before it and brief on the matter. Rajan was invited after
former Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian praised him before
the Parliament's Committee on Estimates, headed by veteran BJP leader Murali
Manohar Joshi, for identifying the NPA crisis and trying to resolve it.
Joshi has written a letter to Rajan asking to appear before the panel and brief the
members on the issue of mounting NPAs, a source told PTI.
Rajan, who was RBI governor for three years till September 2016, is currently the
Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago
Booth School of Busines
All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) has announced a list of top 50 loan
defaulters, mainly the corporate firms, whose total default amount to the banks is
allegedly to be around Rs 40,528 crore (Rs 4056.28 billion).
The association demanded a remedy for the bad loans at the earliest to safeguard the
public money in the banks.
The list, released by the association, is on the data on loan not paid from Public
Sector Banks except State Bank of India, IDBI and foreign banks. The association
also plans to come out with top 30 defaulters in each Bank.
Rank: 20
Banks have been taking possession of the DCHL’s property and assets and disposing
them off to recover loans.
Modi’s administration is trying to win over Indian farmers and douse their
ire over the failure to fulfill his promise of 50 percent profit over the cost of
production. As the country heads to polls, due in early 2019, the main
opposition Congress party is moving to cash in on the disenchantment over
unemployment and rising social tensions.
“The calculation of support price that the government fixes is erratic and
erroneous,” said Darshan Pal, a rice and wheat farmer from the northern
state of Punjab, who is participating in the protest. “The government should
include actual rent of land, interest on capital invested and skilled labor
rate while calculating the cost of cultivation of various crops.”
Rising Support
India sharply increases minimum support prices for crops
Source: Agriculture Ministry
Election Pledge
Keeping a key election promise made in 2014, Modi earlier this year
approved a 50 percent return over the cost of production. Still, prices of
crops including rice, pulses and oilseeds in some wholesale markets are
below the government-set rates. Lower prices, combined with inadequate
government purchases, have triggered the protests.
About 800 million people of India’s 1.3 billion depend directly or indirectly
on farming, with agriculture accounting for about 16 percent of the
economy. The country is the world’s top grower of cotton and the second-
biggest producer of wheat, rice and sugar.
Some farmers traveled for more than 2,000 kilometers from different parts
of the country to reach New Delhi to participate in the two-day protest,
according to Raju Shetty, a member of parliament from Maharashtra state,
who is participating in the protest. There was no communication yet from
the government on Friday’s protest, he said. The police said some 1,800
police personnel have been deployed to maintain order.
Indian farmers fetched about 360 billion rupees ($5.2 billion) less last crop
season due to lower market prices of commodities, including rice, corn,
cotton, soybean and some pulses, than what they would have received by
selling at government-set minimum purchase prices, Saha of Swaraj
Abhiyan said.
As environmental calamity for the Gulf Coast appears imminent, GlobalPost looks at
10 other man-made environmental disasters — both forgotten and infamous — that
could have been prevented.
(Read about the animal species most at risk from the Gulf oil spill.)
The market-driven agricultural practices of U.S. farmers — plowing the virgin topsoil
of the Great Plains and monoculture farming — led to one of the most disastrous
ecological events in the nation’s history. Between 1930 and 1940, drought conditions
and depleted farmland caused severe dust storms, some reaching 10,000 feet in the
sky and called “Black Blizzards.” An estimated 2.5 million people were displaced and
the catastrophe compounded the Great Depression, creating what some have called the
country’s “most hard time.”
Dust bowl of 1935 in Stratford, Texas. (NOAA Photo Library, Historic NWS
collection)
From 1932 to 1968, the Chisso Corporation of Japan released industrial wastewater
with high levels of mercury into the sea around the city of Minamata. The mercury
poisoned the marine food chain and in turn thousands of residents became ill, leading
to the discovery of a new neurological condition called Chisso-Minamata Disease. To
date, more than 1,700 people have died from the disease, which can cause
convulsions, loss of sight and hearing, paralysis, coma and death.
Ecocide in Vietnam
The Rainbow Herbicides showered over the jungles of Southeast Asia included Agent
Blue, Purple and Pink, but Orange accounted for more than half of the nearly 20
million gallons of deadly chemicals used by the U.S. military between 1961 and 1971.
The cost to human life was horrifying and the large-scale destruction of the region’s
environment led to the coinage of the word “ecocide.”
Nguyen Thi Thanh, 53 and her daughter, Tran Thi Le Huyen, 26, who has spina
bifida. (Geoffrey Cain/GlobalPost)
Death in Bhopal
Catastrophe at Chernobyl
First there was Windscale in 1957, then Three Mile Island in 1979, but when a nuclear
reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine had a meltdown in 1986, it became
the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. The United Nation’s Chernobyl
Forum Report estimated the total number of deaths from cancer caused by the
radiation exposure to be 4,000.
A kindergarten in the abandoned town of Pripyat, Ukraine. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
Although it is the most infamous oil spill in history, the Exxon Valdez catastrophe that
dumped 11 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound of Alaska in 1989 is
actually far from the largest on record. The Gulf War oil spill in 1991, for example,
resulted in at least 160 million gallons of oil entering the Persian Gulf. Nonetheless,
Exxon Valdez heightened public awareness of the great environmental costs of oil
spills and led Congress to pass the Oil Pollution Act in 1990. Tragically, clean-up
efforts such as high-pressure washing of shorelines that followed Exxon Valdez also
had detrimental effects on the once pristine ecosystem of the sound.
A bird stained with oil after a 2007 spill near Russia. (Alexander Natruskin/Reuters)
Dying oceans
When the cod population crashed in the historically abundant waters off of
Newfoundland in 1992, 40,000 people lost their jobs and the effect on the region’s
marine ecosystem was devastating. Today, fishing stocks from Iceland to Chile are
overfished and suffering. The writing on the wall couldn’t be clearer: The world’s
oceans are being pushed to their ecological limits. And, diminishing populations of
fish don’t just affect the great predators of the seas, they bring the economies and
livelihoods of their human predators down with them.
Wholesale market in Bangladesh. (Andrew Biraj/Reuters)
Today, the largest lake in Africa is the center of a perfect storm of environmental
crises: chemical and raw sewage pollution; overfishing; a plague of water hyacinth
plants; exploding algae blooms that suffocate flora and fauna. Additionally, the lake’s
border is shrinking by as much as 150 feet in some places. Forty million Africans in
Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania are dependent on Lake Victoria for their livelihoods and
sustenance making this one of the worst unfolding environmental disasters.
A highly endangered shoebill. (Reuters)
Twenty percent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to logging, soy-farming, cattle
ranches and roads in recent decades. The damage to the forest’s biodiversity is
inestimable and the release of large amounts of carbon held in the forest’s flora could
be accelerating global warming. Some experts now believe the way to mitigate
deforestation of the Amazon could be to create better jobs through sustainable
development. "It's no good people saying the Amazon has to be the sanctuary of
humanity and forget that there are 20 million people living there," said Brazil's
President Luiz Lula da Silva.
The Amazon near Mandaquiri, Brazil. (Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)
Jellyfish swarms. Melting glaciers. Lakes turned to desert. Spreading disease. The
effects of global warming caused by increased greenhouse gases read like descriptions
of the Great Tribulation in The Bible. The first climate change conference was held in
1963 and with increasing urgency, scientists have been raising red flags ever since,
warning us that because of unchecked consumption of fossil fuels, the human species
is approaching a critical threshold where we will no longer be able to influence the
warming climate.
42. Democracy in India
Democracy in India was formed after the nation was freed from the clutches of the British rule in
1947. It led to the birth of the world’s largest democracy. Under the effective leadership of the
Indian National Congress, the people of India attained the right to vote and elect their
government.
There are a total of seven national parties in the country – Indian National Congress (INC),
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), Communist Party of India (CPI),
Communist Party of India -Marxist (CPI-M), All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP). Apart from these, many regional parties come forward for elections to state
legislatures. Elections to the parliament and state assemblies are held every 5 years.
Sovereign
Sovereign means independent – free from interference or control of any foreign power. The
country has a government directly elected by the citizens of the country. Indian citizens have the
sovereign power to elect their leaders by elections conducted for the parliament, local bodies as
well as the state legislature.
Socialist
Socialist means social as well as economic equality for all the citizens of the country. Democratic
socialism means attaining socialistic goals by way of evolutionary, democratic and non-violent
means. The government is making continual efforts to lessen the economic inequality by
decreasing the concentration of wealth.
Secular
This means the right and freedom to choose one’s religion. In India, one has the right to practise
any religion or reject them all. The Government of India respects all the religions and does not
have any official state religion. It does not disgrace or promote any religion.
Democratic
This means the government of the country is elected democratically by its citizens. The people of
the country have the right to elect its government at all the levels (Union, State and local) by way
of universal adult franchise also known as ‘one man one vote’. The right to vote is given without
any discrimination on the basis of the colour, caste, creed, religion, gender or education. Not just
political, the people of India also enjoy social and economic democracy.
Republic
The head of the state here is not a heredity king or queen but an elected person. The ceremonial
head of the state, that is, the President of India is elected by an electoral college for a period of
five years, while executive powers are vested in the Prime Minister.
Illiteracy
Illiteracy among people is one of the biggest challenges the Indian democracy has faced ever
since its inception. Education enables the people to exercise their right to vote wisely.
Poverty
People belonging to the poor and backward classes are usually manipulated by the political
parties. They are often bribed to acquire their vote.
Conclusion
Democracy in India has received appreciation from world over. The right to vote to every citizen
of the country has been given without any discrimination on the basis of their caste, colour,
creed, religion, gender or education. However, the huge cultural, religious and linguistic diversity
in the country is a major challenge for its democracy. The differences sought to be created out of
it, are a cause of serious concern. There is a need to curb these divisive tendencies in order to
ensure the smooth functioning of democracy in India.
India is the world’s largest democracy. India is staying as one unit despite having
vast no of cultures, languages and religions. This is possible because of the
democracy in India. Everyone is satisfied because they have a say in their
country’s future. Keeping a country together is not that easy. Many countries are
lost in the battle of separatist politics. For example, recently Britain is exited from
United Kingdom. But India managed to keep itself as one entity. By this we can
say that democracy in India is a success.
Democracy is the starting point of any society’s growth. From the day of
Independence, India has come a long way. Now, everyone have a say in
country’s development. Minorities and disadvantaged sections are represented in
parliament which enabled inclusive growth.
When India got independence, its economy is in shambles. Extreme poverty,
unemployment, food insecurity were the major problems before Indian
government. But India’s democratic constitution successfully balanced
development and welfare of the country. Now, India is one of the fastest growing
economies in the world.
India is successfully conducting regular elections which is a sign of successful
democracy.
In India, the actual power is in the hands of citizens because if people do not like
the governance of ruling party, they can overthrow it.
Though India has a democratic constitution, in reality the power is in the hands of
politicians, bureaucracy, rich and powerful. In many cases, people have no
choice but to accept the decisions of ruling government. For example, from many
years people are fighting against the installation of nuclear plants, but still
government is making deals with other countries to establish nuclear power
plants. And all the people that are forced to leave their lands for development
projects are poor people. These power balances question the very nature of
democracy in India.
Though people have the power of vote, many politicians are manipulating people
in the name of caste, freebies and welfare schemes.
The rise in crimes and violence in India is a sign of failure of democracy. In other
forms of governments, punishments for criminals is quick and severe.
Getting justice is not at all easy in India. Many cases are pending in courts for
years. Victims are forced to suffer again by visiting courts many times if not
throughout their lifetime. We couldn’t improve the situation with our democratic
constitution.
In India, rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. This do not happen in
a democratic country.
Conclusion :-
Indian citizens protest if they are against the decisions of government. People
are expressing their views when government makes a new law or alters an existing
law. This is a sign of success of democracy in India because people have a say in
country’s politics. Though there are some loopholes, people and government
together are working towards deepening democracy in India.
Professionals in the medical field have understood the benefits of physical activity for years. Children who
engage in outdoor play benefit from several physical and social aspects of community playgrounds. In addition,
city playgrounds and parks contribute significantly to a sense of community. They also contribute to a reduction in
community crime. Statistics pulled from multiple sources show that community playgrounds deliver a wide range
of communal benefits. AAA State of Play offers commercial grade play structures that our customers can
purchase online.
Battling Obesity: The Role of Community Playgrounds
Children who experience obesity undergo a range of social pressures and rejection. The National Center for
Biotechnology Information revealed in a 2012 study that children experiencing obesity face lower academic
achievement and suffer from poor social adjustment. Furthermore, the CDC reports that 13% of children and pre -
teens experience serious problems with weight. Access to city playgrounds and parks p rovides children and
adults the opportunity to engage in exercise. The CDC revealed that a 25.6% increase in physical activity
occurred when individuals gained access to a play area.
Children experiencing weight problems who have access to a playground ben efit in two ways: they gain the
opportunity to exercise regularly and engage in social activities. The physical benefits associated with
playgrounds are clear. Non-obese children get to socialize with children facing weight problems. Consequently,
with the proper guidance non-obese children can learn empathy and compassion by participating in social play.
Today, the flexibility offered by technology and materials provides the foundation for more community playground
equipment options. For example, play areas are structured to meet the needs of children in different age groups.
In addition, companies interested in environmental conservation can select recycled plastic equipment. Finally,
playgrounds based on themes deliver a rich learning experience. AAA State of Play's online playground
equipment shop allows you to buy a structure that meets your organization's needs.
Commercial playgrounds are not only places where children can run, jump, and play. To build a commercial
playground in your community means providing your children and their friends a safe place to explore their
imagination, build social skills, and stay active and healthy. Children are more likely to venture outdoors to play
when they have a safe and exciting space to do so, and it gives them a chance to build up their bodies and their
minds as they climb, slide, swing, and sometimes splash their way into fun.
The following commercial playground benefits will help your family and hopefully inspire you to advocate for more
play equipment in your neighborhood.
Fight Childhood Obesity
According to the AAA State of Play program, nearly 13% of children and pre -teens suffer from weight issues.
Overweight children are less likely to succeed in school, more likely to be bullied, and often experience fr om poor
self-esteem and social rejection. Staying active is the best and easiest way for children to avoid obesity, and
community playgrounds encourage outdoor and active play.
Taking your children to the park for a few hours every week will help them stay healthy. Oftentimes, children will
avoid exercise, especially if they are told to do so by doctors or parents. But playing at the park disguises the
exercise as fun and games, giving your child the opportunity to take responsibility for their active lifes tyle and
pursue the activities they actually want to play.
Build Social Skills
Not only do children actively engage with playground equipment, they also engage with other children who are
playing. Playing on a playground helps children develop the social skills they need to succeed in school, including
learning how to take turns, practicing patience, and developing a strong sense of self -control. Developing these
skills early on the playground will help children succeed cognitively, academically, and help them build healthy
and long-lasting friendships. Building these social skills in children is also important to the community as a whole.
When you have a commercial playground, children of different races, creeds, and economic backgrounds can all
play together in a hostile-free environment. This sense of togetherness and equality will translate into
understanding, compassion, and acceptance as these children grow into adults.
Use Your Imagination
Play is an important aspect of childhood development, and when young children are given the opportunity to
explore and play on their own terms, they are preparing their brains for academic problem solving and social
experiences. Playing is a time when kids can re-enact the things they’ve seen, whether it be from their parents or
on TV, and they will start to learn right from wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, as their games progress.
Engaging with other children as they play will also help them build the social skills discussed earlier, but it also
helps them develop a sense of creativity. Allowing children to explore their creative side at a young age will help
them develop the cognitive skills necessary for school as well as give them a huge boost in their self -esteem.
Strengthen Self-Esteem
While imaginative play can build a strong sense of self-esteem in children, so will their interactions with others.
The more they play with other children on the playground, the more they will understand their own sense of self
and what they mean to others.
As they navigate their way through the swing-sets and slides, they will learn how to manage their physical skills,
and as they play with other children, they will navigate their way through social relationships, learning new social
cues along the way. These interactions both on and off the playground equipment provide children with
opportunities to test their physical and interpersonal skills, and you can see their confidence grow the more they
play.
Practice Problem Solving
Problems will arise on the playground. There may be equipment out of reach for younger children that they must
work towards as they get older, and there may be tiffs on the playground between children that will need to be
worked out. As events like these play out, your child will be able to try their hand a t problem solving in order to
come up with the best outcome.
Of course, parental guidance is sometimes required in order to moderate fights and to offer an extra lift on the
monkey bars. But each of these opportunities are opportunities for children to lea rn, and community playgrounds
are safe spaces for this type of self-exploration to happen.
Build a Sense of Community
The AAA State of Play lists community playgrounds as one of the most important amenities families look for
when searching for new homes. Even businesses who are seeking to relocate rank parks as one of their top
choices for nearby amenities. This is because families in neighborhoods with parks are more likely to engage in
social activities outside of the home.
The community playground offers a free and safe communal space for large groups to gather, socialize, and play,
and the more families involved in the planning of a park, the more likely it is to be successful.
Parks are not only for children. They offer adults the same space to relax, e ngage outdoors, and meet other
parents and adults which can lead to fruitful and rewarding adult relationships. Community playgrounds are built
on a sense of togetherness, and bringing people together in a safe space where they can exercise, play, and
interact is the role of a good park.
A community playground will benefit your family in numerous ways. If you are interested in building a park in your
neighborhood, you can apply for a commercial playground grant. We have information on playground grants that
can help you get started here, and we offer state-of-the-art safety equipment that will protect your children and
your family as you play.
Therefore we'd like to say that browsing can affect the work effectiveness and
efficiency but at the same time it can be really helpful sometimes. It will be good idea
if the companies create, publish, and enforce policies on personal Internet use. This
will potentially reduce the liability associated with issues related to employee job
performance.
The Revolution of internet enabled technological tools such as Smart phones, iPods
and other internet-devices including computers within the workplace has let both
positive and negative impact on employee productivity. Internet use has
revolutionized the pattern of working style at the workplace which has led to an
increased use for non professional activities at the workplace. With widespread
connectivity and constantly emerging online activities, people are spending more
time online for studying, learning, communicating, creating, and entertaining
themselves. Though use of internet helped in shaping and promoting job
satisfaction among employees, it has helped in diminishing loneliness and
depression and enhance social support and self esteem.
Mobile internet devices permit employees to enjoy the comforts of doing their jobs
not only during day but also after working hours. Internet use at the workplace
ranges from aimless internet surfing for personal goals not related to work. It is
assumed that most of employees spent at least 1 hour on non work-related activities
during a regular work day, especially using the Internet for personal reasons on
mobile. It emerges that excessive internet use within the workplace culminates to
reduced productivity due to unrestricted autonomy. Essentially, employees spend
most of the time focusing on personal issues rather than focusing on achieving
organizational goals. This leads to loss of productive time hence productivity may
tend to decline. Here is List of Best MBA College in NCR from where MBA in
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Internet use policy within the workplace should be developed and carefully
monitored to promote compliance. This would help eliminate internet abuse
within the workplace hence eliminating reduced work productivity.
Organizational management should deploy technology experts to filter
information entering the internet sites within the workplace. This would
restrict the kind of information that employees would access from the internet
sites without demoralizing them.
Organizations implementing ‘no internet access policy’ should nullify such
policy and instead develop a restrictive internet use policy. This would
promote knowledge sharing and employee engagement hence creating
employee satisfaction.
Organizations should allow the use of Smart phones and the internet in the
workplace but develop an ethical code to guide their use. This is crucial in
avoiding internet misuse in the workplace setting.
Conclusion
With advancements in technological innovations especially the linkage of
technological devices with the internet has had enormous impact on business
operations and employee work life. There is no doubt that browsing at work place
goes far enough and it affects the productivity adversely being one of the biggest
culprits, yet excessive restriction of internet use leads to decreased employee
morale and loss of satisfaction.
Therefore, organizations should develop sound internet use policy, carefully
implement and monitor employee compliance. This would help achieve optimal
results in relation to the gains of internet use within the workplace. MBA in Human
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Conclusion:-
As per the discussion above, it can be concluded that the brands have their own place in the market
as well as in the conscience of the people; so we can say that brands partially rule our lives because
the inclination and preference towards them (brands) differs from person to person.
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Yes :-
Also Read : Group Discussion topics for School students (with Answers) of
2018
No :-
Companies just market their products, and the ultimate decision to get influenced
by their marketing strategies lies with us, consumers. So, brands do not rule our
lives.
We can say that it’s a win-win situation for both companies and consumers.
Companies put so much effort to deliver quality productsto get a good name for
their brands. This helps consumers to not waste money on low quality products.
Once the brand earns the trust of it’s consumers, they tend to buy from the same
companies, and brands build their loyal customer base.
If we go to a new city or country, we may not know the good local stores that sell
quality products, but if we know the quality of specific brand for the products we
require, we can easily buy them in super markets. It saves us a lot of time in
figuring out which local store to trust.
Conclusion :-
Although brands do not rule our lives, subconsciously they influence us a lot that
our purchase choices do depend on the advertisements we see in our daily lives.
Some people do recognize it and tries to buy brands that are worth the price, and
some others fall into the trap of branded goods and buys expensive stuff.
Many people use brands to express their identity and admit that it is a way to determine the type of
person someone is upon first impression. The companies themselves are purposely creating an
importance and social value on their brands. The social justice is buried under all
the unconscious meanings of wearing certain clothes that the normal person undermines as they go
about their days, because it is normal in their environments to be bombarded with hundreds if not
thousands of brands daily. The prices compared to how much it costs to make many of these
products is unjust in itself. We as consumers are fooled and intrigued by the expert advertisers to
have a desire to purchase items that these companies are “making” important in our society, while
making 300% profit on products that are minimal expenses for them to make due to globalization
After watching the No Logo movie, the clothing I wear affects my thoughts more on the injustice that is
gone through to make the shirt or shoes I am wearing, especially how it embodies the idea of
“globalization”. Its hard to know what exactly is going on in other countries, in factories for big name
companies that are based out of our country. Even after doing research, and listening to protestors
and the companies, I personally believe its hard to determine the severity of globalization, and if there
are any advantages for the people in their local lives compared to other jobs. The movie describes
how the workers are paid extremely low wages and many companies now are still trying to lower
production costs, and how companies outsource to so many different places that some parts of
products come from entirely different parts of the world. No matter the severity though, the
globalization process is affecting workers both in the United States (unemployment rate) and workers
across the world, with wages and the amount of jobs being offered.
In the end, I too an advertising major, am affected by the ads and “brand identities” that are around us
all. I too am brand conscious with all the Nike apparel I wear, and Apple products I love. But the
branding and logos we see and use everyday would not be so bad, if in order for us to have them
other human beings would be exploited, given below survival wages and were subject to the rules and
regulations of dominating brands around the world.
10 Community Event
Ideas To Bring Everyone
Together
CHARITY
Deciding what type of event you should hold will depend on your
goals, as well as the size and demographic of your target audience.
However, here are 10 tried and trusted ideas for community events
that should help get everyone together. For further ideas, tips and
tricks for community events, join the discussion over industry forum
EventTribe.
1. Host a street party
Street parties or ‘block parties’ are said to have originated in New
York at the start of World War 1. Entire blocks were roped off so a
parade and patriotic singing could be held to honour the members of
that block who had gone off to war. In the UK, street parties started in
1919 as ‘Peace Teas’ after the war as a treat for children in those
times of hardship, and were formal sit down affairs.
Street parties are now being held at any time, for all ages, to build
community spirit at the street level. They are a more relaxed affair with
attendees asked to bring a dish to share or with a barbecue arranged.
According to Streets Alive, a resource for street party planning, Bristol
is the UK’s street party capital with around 150 held each year.
The government has produced a step-by-step guide for anyone
looking to hold a street party, which can be downloaded here.
Related: Your Guide to Planning a Successful Charity Event
2. Put on a film screening
Who doesn’t enjoy watching a great movie on a big screen with a tub
of tasty popcorn? You can organise a film screening at a local school,
church, community centre or even outside, under the stars. Choose to
screen a recent blockbuster or go for an old classic and embrace a
theme, like ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ with guests encouraged to come
in fancy dress.
On the other hand, if you have a message to get across or are
marking a particular occasion you can choose a relevant movie i.e.
‘The Dam Busters’ to commemorate Remembrance Day or ‘The Fault
in Our Stars’ to raise awareness about living with cancer.
But don’t forget, under UK copyright law, if you are playing films
outside your domestic or home circle, you will need to obtain a licence
to do so (even for free of charge events and fundraisers).
You can apply online for a Single Title Screening Licence (STSL) –
prices start at £83 (plus £150 refundable deposit). For a full price list
click here.
Related: 10 Dos and Dont’s For Running Your First Film Screening
3. Organise a pub quiz
A quiz night with general knowledge questions can appeal to a broad
audience, or you can target particular groups by focusing on specialist
subjects, such as football or music. Theming your quiz can also give it
an extra edge; for example, how about holding one on Halloween with
questions about horror films, along with spooky decorations to get
everyone in the spirit!
The hardest part of holding a quiz night is inevitably writing the
questions. If you research your own trivia on the internet, then be
careful how you select the sites you choose to get the questions from.
Do not just crib from the first list of horror movie facts you come
across – your participants may well have been on the same website!
Just remember to notify the local council first and arrange for the
anything not claimed to be taken to a local charity shop or furniture
reuse organisation afterwards.
8. Organise a performance
Amateur dramatics has been a long standing part of the community,
so why not gather some aspiring thespians together and organise a
show?
Whether you get some local farmers, caterers or local food shops
together, this is a great way to highlight the local produce and local
sellers in the area. As well as getting to eat all the delicious food at
the event, people will know they will be able to buy this produce
locally on any other given day.
Why not think Great British Bake Off and ask the community to create
their own showstopper cakes and raffle them off. No one can turn
down cake, especially if you have a tea stand nearby!
You may be limited to using fireworks to certain nights of the year like
Guy Fawkes Night and New Year’s Eve, but there isn’t anything
stopping you having your own bonfire night with all the added
activities to go with it, like lighting sparklers and toasted
marshmallows.
Remember that Eventbrite offers you all the tools you need for
organising your community event. This includes your own free-of-
charge professional event page and registration and ticketing system,
as well as facilities to help you promote your event. Click here to get
started! And if you’re new to organising events, learn how to create
an event plan with our handy template.
47. Reading newspapers should be mandatory
1. It strengthens reading of
students
Newspaper is the best source to strengthen reading for student. Student develops
habit of reading newspaper daily. Reading is a very healthy activity. Reading habit
makes student active learner. Student gets full command on reading with the
passage of time.
Different political aspects are presented on newspaper. Political students can get a
vast range of political information from newspaper. Students should make a habit
to read political news, this increases student’s political knowledge.
Newspaper keeps student updated with the latest happenings of country and the
world. Various economic, political and social events are updated. International
relations and foreign policies are discussed.
Students get useful ideas about their research proposals. Newspaper is a handy
source to get multiple topics and ideas. Latest researches are also discussed in
newspaper.
Students get entertainment and sports news. Different sport events are discussed
and students get to know about different famous personalities of the sports’ world.
The entertainment and sports news are also very important for students. They can
also get unique and different ideas about vogue and latest trends.
9. Students get useful information on latest discoveries and inventions
Latest discoveries and inventions are published on the newspapers. Students can
get their course related information from newspapers.
These are the benefits of reading newspaper for students. Newspaper not only
enhances student’s vocabulary but it enables them to read, write and speak in a
better and impressed way.
*
Improve Skills by Reading News Paper
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison
So, do you even have to ask? Of course it’s very important, especially for students, to pick up
the habit of reading in general, and reading newspapers in particular. Over the past few days,
we’ve been discussing a lot of things around Group Discussion, including certain topics that
evaluators could give for GD.
Your brain needs to be active & engaged and requires the right amount of exercise to keep it
strong and healthy. It also helps you improve focus and increases your attention span – all of
which is possible by devouring your daily quota of news.
Remember Dr. Seuss’s words – “The more you read, the more things you know. The more
that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” And that’s exactly how newspapers help you… to
go places! Everything you read in a newspaper fills you with bits and pieces of relevant
information which you store unconsciously in your mind/memory which will come out,
inadvertently, at the right time and when you need it the most.
Increase awareness:
You should always know what’s happening around you – in your locality, city, state and
country. You should also understand how global policies/regulations/events impact your life
or your future career. From political and economic affairs to sports, from social media to
scientific and technological advancements, newspapers bring all this info and more to you on
a daily basis.
Better subject-knowledge:
Trust us, reading newspapers daily gives you a better grasp on any subject or topic relevant to
your field. As newspapers are a treasure trove of valuable information, reading them
improves students’ chances of cracking competitive exams like CAT, UPSC, SSB, Bank POs,
or GDs or interviews that involves questions on current affairs.
It’s a fact that the more you read, the more new words/terms/phrases you come across which,
in turn, adds to your repertoire of words. A solid command over language, ability to articulate
your thoughts/ideas well, enhanced reading speed, enriched vocabulary and fluency in
speaking – are all the positive outcomes of reading newspapers.
Ease of access:
Newspapers are the cheapest, easiest and best sources of information on various topics/issues.
They are readily available at a minimal cost and are easily accessible – both online and
offline. Whether you’ve access to the Internet or not, you’re sure to have access to news –
thanks to newspapers.
From the pre-Independence era, newspapers have helped inform, instruct and entertain
people, besides uniting them at the time of crisis. Newspapers act as a guiding force for all
the parties involved in the development/progress of the country. They serve as a link between
the rulers and the ruled, the government and its people by publishing experts’ opinions and
healthy criticism on burning issues in the country.
Delhi is staring at yet another season of severe air pollution. The air quality has worsened
in the last couple of days and is expected to dip even further in the coming week. While
authorities are taking every possible measure to fight air pollution, a look at WHO’s seven-
point guide could help them tackle air pollution in Delhi. In a report released this year in
May, the World Health Organization listed out seven steps that need to be taken by
governments and industries to fight increasing air pollution.
Here’s what the government can do to tackle air pollution
1- Greening of the health sector to minimize its pollution emissions.
2- Build safe and affordable public transport systems and pedestrian- and cycle-friendly
networks.
3- Invest in energy-efficient housing and power generation.
4- Improve industry and municipal waste management.
5- Reduce emissions from household coal and biomass energy systems.
6- Reduce agricultural waste incineration, forest fires and certain agroforestry activities —
for example, charcoal production.
7- Support the transition to exclusive use of clean household energy for cooking, heating
and lighting.
The government has taken several measures including banning industry units and
construction activities to tackle pollution in the national capital. According to the Indian
Institute of Tropical Meteorology, the current meteorological conditions are not favourable
for dispersal of pollutants in the capital for the next two days.
The authorities have said that due to biomass burning in the neighbouring states, the air
quality is likely to remain poor on Thursday and Friday.
The Environment Pollution Control Authority on Tuesday urged the people of Delhi to use
public transport for the next few days to keep a check on pollution. The requests came in
the backdrop of reports that suggest private vehicles contribute to 40 per cent pollution in
Delhi-NCR.
Following are 8 measures taken by the authorities to tackle
the air pollution in the city
1. Odd-Even Policy On Vehicles Make A Comeback
Bringing back last year’s odd-even scheme, the government on Thursday said that the policy will
be implemented in the city for 5 days starting from November 13. The policy was first introduced
in January 2016 when the quality of air had nosedived and was re-introduced in April in the same
year. As per the rule, between 8am and 8pm private, non-commercial vehicles are allowed out
on the roads on alternate days – odd days if the vehicle’s license plate ends in an odd number,
and even days if it ends in an even number.
Also Read: Battling Delhi’s Killer Smog: Odd-Even 3.0 Returns From November 13, But Will It
Be A Success?
Border entry points from where Heavy & Medium goods vehicles enter into Delhi,
sealed by Delhi Police at 11 PM yesterday: Midnight visuals from Singhu Border
35
7:47 AM - Nov 10, 2017
5. Ban On Civil Construction and Strict compliance of Graded Response Action Plan
The construction dust has off late been recognised as one of the major sources of pollution in
Delhi. It can cause health complications like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases,
silicosis, etc. Amidst the current crisis, the Delhi government has imposed a ban on construction
and demolition activities.
A meeting to deliberate the issue of mitigation of air pollution was held under the Chairmanship
of Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC). Several
decisions were discussed at the meeting, including the strict compliance of Graded Response
Action Plan (GRAP) and other directives issued by top court last month – an effective
enforcement of ban on diesel generator sets, stone crushers, hot mix plants (plant that is used in
the manufacturing of coated road stones) and brick kilns, which have not converted to a cleaner
zig zag technology. The Graded Response Action Plan will be implemented by the Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB), which will monitor air quality from various stations across Delhi-
NCR.
6. Schools To Be Closed Till November 12
The Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday afternoon ordered all the schools
in Delhi (private, government and municipal) to remain closed till Sunday, November 12. “Due to
the deteriorating air quality in Delhi, the health of children cannot be compromised. We have
ordered the closure of all the schools in Delhi until Sunday,” the deputy chief minister had
tweeted.
7. Metro Announces More Trips, Public Transport Buses Increases Its Numbers
The Delhi Metro today announced that its trains will undertake over 180 additional trips and
charge four times the prevalent parking rates to discourage use of private vehicles in light of the
alarming pollution levels in the city. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will be running 3,317 train
trips from November 9 instead of 3,131, an increase of 186 train trips to provide increased
capacity to the public in this weather, it said in a statement. The number of trips will remain
unchanged on the Red Line and the Airport Express Line.The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC)
has been directed to hire 500 buses on a short-term basis and the DMRC has been asked to
procure 300 buses to handle the rush if and when the odd-even scheme was launched.
8. National Green Tribunal Restricts Industrial Activities And Bans Waste Burning In Delhi
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) among its many directions to deal with the grim situation
included a ban on industrial activities and entry of trucks, lambasted the Delhi government and
civic bodies over the worsening air quality in Delhi and neighbouring states.
“No construction activity will be carried out on structures until further orders… all industrial
activities in Delhi-NCR which are causing emmissions will also not be allowed to carry on their
functioning till November 14”, a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar
said
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RELATED NEWS
On July 1, 2017, India ushered in the Goods and Service Tax (GST), the country’s
biggest indirect tax reform since the economy opened up 25 years ago. The policy
aims to streamline the taxation structure in the country by doing away with various
taxes imposed by states and Centre and introducing a unified tax system. A year
on, here is a look at the journey so far.
What is Goods and Service Tax?
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GST is a destination-based tax and is levied at the final consumption point. Under
the new tax regime, the final consumer of the goods and services will have to bear
the tax charged in the supply chain. Manufacturers and dealers can later claim a
refund. As a result, a gamut of indirect taxes like excise duty, VAT, service tax,
luxury tax etc are eliminated under the system. Businesses with an annual turnover
of Rs. 20 lakh (Rs.10 lakh for special category states) are exempted from GST.
When were the bills passed?
Four bills related to the GST were tabled in the Parliament. The Central GST,
Integrated GST, Union Territory GST and the Compensation Law were passed in
March in Lok Sabha. The Upper House passed the bills in April.
CGST Bill: This is related to the levying and collection of GST on supply of
goods and/or services within the boundaries of a state.
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IGST Bill: The IGST bill deals with the supply of goods and/or services between
different states.
Union Territory GST Bill: The UTGST pertains to the supply of goods and
services in the Union Territories.
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The Compensation Bill: The Compensation bill will compensate the states for
loss of revenue which might occur due to the implementation of GST for a period
of five years.
Read | Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, explained
PM Modi, the then president Pranab Mukherjee, Hamid Ansari at the central hall to launch the GST
(Express Photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)
In its first meeting, held in September 2016, the Centre and states agreed on a
timetable for deciding on the tax rate and completion of legislative work. They
decided to exempt businesses with an annual turnover below Rs. 20 lakh out of the
GST net. The main focus areas of discussion remained on rates, threshold limit and
division of power between states and Centre. The Council has held 27 meetings till
date to deliberate on various aspects of GST.
This year too, India plans to keep up with the tradition of announcing regions free from
the practice of open defecation and plans to make some big announcements. As it is
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘Swachhata Hi Seva’ movement, a 15-day
cleanliness drive which will culminate on October 2, with people from across country
coming together for various cleanliness activities. Here is what is lined up to
commemorate the day this year:
Swachh Survekshan Grameen Results Will Be Announced: On October 2, Swachh
Survekshan Grameen results will be declared and it is expected that PM Modi will
honour best states with ‘Swachh Survekshan Grameen Puraskar’ at a function in Delhi.
Swachh Survekshan Grameen was unveiled by the Ministry of Drinking Water and
Sanitation on July 13 with a target to cover 698 districts and gather feedback from 50
lakh citizens and assess the sanitation quotient of villages just like the survey that has
been conducted for the last three years in urban areas.
Some of the parameters in which the villages are being ranked include availability of
toilets, usage of sanitation facilities, hygiene and maintenance of sanitation facilities,
status of littering in public place and status of stagnant water in localities.
Along with the President, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Maharashtra Chief Minister –
Devendra Fadnavis, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister – Yogi Adityanath and Minister of
Drinking, Water and Sanitation – Uma Bharti, to name a few, also shared their views
about the Swachh Bharat Mission.
Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis was invited to share Maharashtra’s success story
with global leaders since the state is one of the top performing states in Swachh Bharat
Abhiyan. Mr Fadnavis at the conclave stressed on the state’s plan to sustain its ODF tag
and said, “After becoming ODF, we have given plans of sustainability to every Village
Panchayat, encouraging them by presenting awards every year, even kids engaged
themselves in awareness drive in the state. The state had just 45% toilet cover since
independence (1947 to 2014) & we achieved remaining 55% in just 3 years.”
On his part, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stressed on the fact that Uttar Pradesh will
achieve the ODF status, much before the nation’s target of 2019.
Vice President Venkaiah Naidu added that India, a country of 1.3 billion people, is large
and complex, but Swachh Bharat Mission has been a great unifier.
From Rural To Urban Ministry Plan, The Swachh Plans: The Central Government
has adopted Swachhata Hi Seva movement in an unique way, the Ministry of Urban
Development (MoUD) has advised municipalities across the country to conduct
‘plogging’, a unique form of exercise which combines jogging with collection of garbage
from the roads, with citizens from September 15 to October 2. Originated in Stockholm in
2016, plogging is a very common phenomena in Scandinavian countries like Norway
and Denmark and European cities of Edinburgh and Paris. The word has been borrowed
from the Swedish word ‘plocka upp,’ which means ‘pick up,’ and all people are supposed
to do is jog and pick up a garbage from the roads.
Also Read: Rashtriya Swachhta Diwas On Gandhi Jayanti, Few In Bengaluru To Jog
And Clear Garbage To Fight Littering
Expected Open Defecation Announcements
Uttar Pradesh: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the launch of Swachhata Hi Seva
movement on September 15 told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that in accordance with
the Baseline Survey (a survey done in 2012 to identify how many households in India do
not have access to toilets) Uttar Pradesh will be declared open-defecation free by
October 2 this year, and by 2019, every home is expected to have access to toilet.
According to the numbers, the state has been successful in constructing more than 1.7
crore Individual Household Toilets in the rural areas, whereas it has declared 58,982
villages, 29,295 gram panchayats, 116 blocks and 10 districts open defecation free. In
urban areas, 6.6 lakh toilets have been constructed and out of 653 urban local bodies,
234 have been declared ODF of which 83 have been certified ODF by Quality Council of
India (QCI).
Also Read: Pink Toilets In A Uttar Pradesh District To Ensure Menstrual Hygiene
Facilities For Policewomen
Karnataka: The state this year aims to go big on October 2 and plans to announce both
its rural and urban areas free from the practice of open defecation. Currently, the rural
areas have the sanitation coverage of 97 per cent, while Urban areas have a toilet
coverage of only 50.84 per cent, yet the state is confident that this Gandhi Jayanti it will
achieve the coveted ODF Tag.
Urban Karnataka has already missed its two deadlines of going ODF back in October 2,
2017 and December 2017 and now the authorities have set a new timeline of October 2
this year. Major cities and corporation in the urban parts of the state such as Bengaluru,
Hubli are yet to achieve the ODF targets. Whereas, the rural counterparts in order to
achieve the goals by the set deadline have already started taking initiatives, they have
launched a new campaign Swachhameva Jayate (Victory for cleanliness), a rural
cleanliness and sanitation campaign. It is a door-to-door activity headed by children of
primary and secondary schools where they educate people on the importance of
building a toilet at home along with other parameters of cleanliness, hygiene, toilet
usage and waste management.
Also Read: As Karnataka Nears Open Defecation Free Status, Improving Rural Waste
Management Becomes State’s Priority
Jammu And Kashmir: India’s northern most state is already self-declared ODF, but by
October 2, 2018, the state officials expect that Jammu and Kashmir will also get an
official ODF tag subject to the third party verification process by Quality Council Of India
(QCI).
As of September 24, 291 out of 316 blocks, 3,885 out of 4,171 gram panchayats and
7,054 out of 7,565 villages in J&K, have already completed the verification process and
certified ODF. In urban areas, out of 36 urban local bodies, 27 have received the ODF
certification from QCI.
Also Read: Swachhata Hi Seva: Jammu And Kashmir Declared Open Defecation Free
By Governor Satya Pal Malik
Telangana: Today India’s rural sanitation coverage has increased to 92 per cent from
mere 38 per cent in 2014, but Telangana still struggles to get the tag of Open Defecation
Free. According to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan data, the state has the least number of
toilets in the house along with Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
Currently, Telangana has been able to move up its sanitation coverage from to 26 to 89
per cent and make 5,374 villages out of a total of 10,434, 12 districts out of 31 and 65
urban local bodies out of 73 ODF.
The state has already missed the deadline of declaring itself completely ODF by April
2018 and has now set October 2 as their new target. K.T. Rama Rao, Minister of
Municipal Administration and Urban Development asserted that the state will achieve
ODF tag by October 2, 2018 and ODF plus status by October 2, 2019.
Tamil Nadu: With over 52 lakh toilets built within a period of four years in the rural
areas, the eleventh largest state in the country, Tamil Nadu is all set to be declared ODF
by October 2 this year. The state has a total of 32 districts of which 30 have been
declared free from open defecation. While on the urban front, with over 4.37 lakh toilets
490 urban local bodies out of the total 664 urban local bodies have attained the status of
ODF.
Along with these big announcements by the states, Kerala plans to announce its Urban
parts ODF, while Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand aim to announce their
rural parts free from open defecation. On the other hand, Uttarakhand plans to
announce the urban parts free from open defecation.
Also Read: Tamil Nadu Set To Declare Its Urban And Rural Areas Open Defecation
Free This Gandhi Jayanti
Apart from states, cities like Noida, Ludhiana and Union Territory Puducherry too are
expected to go ODF this October 2.
If these regions are successful in meeting their ODF target by this Rashtriya Swachhta
Diwas then India’s sanitation coverage which is currently at 92 per cent will hit a major
milestone.
NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of
India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh
Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the
importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October
2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat
Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues
like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual
hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga
Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.
The court modified its order following a plea by the Tamil Nadu
government seeking a review and seeking permission for bursting
firecrackers between 4am and 6am.
The court had earlier observed that there was a need to strike a balance
between the right to health of citizens and the right to carry on trade by
fireworks manufacturers.
A complete ban was opposed by the centre, which argued conditions could
be imposed on the manufacture and sale of high-decibel firecrackers
instead.
First, let’s get the bad news out of the way: Diwali firecrackers are partially banned.
And now for the good news: Diwali firecrackers are partially banned.
The Supreme Court gave its ruling just 15 days before Diwali on November 7, in
response to a petition on the behalf of three children in September 2015, pleading for
a ban on the manufacture and sale of firecrackers to protect their health. In 2016 and
2017, the SC had passed an order with many restrictions on the manufacture and
sale of firecrackers in Delhi and the National Capital Region. This time, the ban has
expanded to a national ruling.
The apex court observed that there was a need to strike a balance between the right
to health of citizens and the right to carry on trade by fireworks manufacturers.
Accordingly, it laid down the following rules and guidelines in its order.
Firecrackers
that are green, or ‘less polluting’ — that is, on the safe side of the decibel
and emission limits — are allowed in Delhi and areas nearby;
should be burnt only for a couple of hours, between 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on
Diwali and 11:55 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. during Christmas and New Year;
can be burnt in the southern states for two hours, according to their own
state rulings;
cannot be sold online through e-portals.
should be sold only through license holders
States have been asked to check whether they can try out collective or
community bursting of crackers so that the quantity is reduced
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has been directed to check the
emission quality one week before and after Diwali
In Delhi and the NCR, crackers can be burst only in some designated areas
assigned by the CPCB.
All festivals and functions like marriages too should follow these guidelines.
Banned crackers on sale in an area could get station house officers of regional
police stations into trouble
Ironically, regardless of how you interpret the court order, you can expect fireworks!
Those who want the complete ban in order to protect the environment are indignant.
There are 14 Indian cities which are already among the top 15 polluted cities of the
world. Will a partial ban lead to cleaner air, they ask. Moreover, how does partial
cracker time reduce the emission? For just two hours, the entire city will collapse
under the weight of polluted air, points out the anti-cracker brigade.
Those rooting for celebrations are mortified that they will not allowed to burst
crackers all day to celebrate the return of Lord Ram to Ayodhya. “What about our
religious beliefs,” they demand.
Firecrackers affect health. Aluminium in crackers could cause skin ailments. They
may contain barium salt, which lets out toxic gases that interfere with our respiration.
It has been two years since a special segment aired on the news sent jolts across
every Indian's wallet. 2018 marks the second year anniversary of Demonetisation,
a move by the government that sought to formalize the Indian economy.
Ever since demonetisation came into effect, a number of people and sectors have
been seen to be affected by the temporary cash crunch. This cannot be ignored
while weighing the outcome of the move.
1. Around 115 people lost their lives standing in ATM queues to withdraw money.
2. Businesses saw a dip in demand due to the cash crunch which impacted them
heavily.
3. 15 crore daily wage earners lost their livelihood for several weeks.
4. Demonetisation also caused a loss of about 15 lakh jobs as people were laid off
by companies affected by demonetisation.
Source: Quartz
The entire move cost the country much more than ₹21,000 crores. Do the numbers
translate into what the nation was promised two years back? Prashant Bhushan, a
Public Interest Lawyer in the Supreme Court, in a conversation
with ScoopWhoop explains what he thinks the real reason behind demonetisation
was.
It is always difficult to assess the strength of an ongoing insurgency since due to its sheer
nature fighting insurgency is altogether different from fighting a conventional battle. Thus,
the number of militants killed during an insurgency can’t be the true barometer of the success
quotient of a counterinsurgency campaign. As the centre of gravity is in the minds of the
people, the security strategy should normally remain one of containment rather than the
pursuit of an illusory victory to be secured by a massive application of military force to
reverse the thrust of insurgency.
The recent official findings of the Jammu and Kashmir police regarding encounters fuelling
militant recruitment substantiate what David Kilcullen, the renowned counter-insurgency
expert, had observed in 2010 in his book titled Counterinsurgency: “At the start of a
conventional engagement, if we are facing one hundred of the enemy, and we kill twenty, we
can assume that eighty are left. In counterinsurgency, this logic does not hold: the 20 killed
may have 40 relatives who are now in a blood feud with and are obligated to take revenge on
the security forces who killed the 20, so the new number of the enemy is not 80 but 120…
Body counts tell us little about overall enemy strength.”
An explosive mix of cross-border terrorism, proxy warfare, insurgency and persistent civil
unrest has converted the Kashmir Valley into a ‘hybrid’ conflict zone in which many junior
and middle ranking officers of India’s security forces consisting of state police and the
Central paramilitary organisations realize early that the way they have been trained to fight
will not work in this environment, and that their institutional leadership does not have all the
answers they need. However, recent counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir have
experienced considerable success in eliminating both the Pakistan-based terrorists and the
local militants. But that is not the whole part of the story as despite successful operations,
militancy has not taken a back seat. Saner heads knew all along that measuring success by the
number of terrorists and militants killed was not only deceptive but also oversimplification of
Kashmir’s extremely complicated reality.
According to the widely-cited reports, each encounter in the valley triggers a surge in militant
recruitment which far exceeds militants killed in counter-insurgency operations. At the
beginning of 2016, there were around100 active militants in the valley, which rose to about
150 at the beginning of 2018. If 88 locals had joined militancy in 2016, their number stood at
127 in 2017. And this year is going to be the worst in a decade, with more than 80 youths
having already joined the militancy so far. More disturbing than the rise in local recruitment
into militancy is the rising public support for militancy.
Stone pelting has already been converted into a mass ritual with girls and children as new
participants, too young to be aware of what it means. Open support by locals to trapped
militants – particularly during encounters – enabling their easy escape, has entirely changed
the relationship between the locals and the militants. Many encounters have also led to the
death of non-combatant civilians who got trapped in the crossfire. And each civilian death
leads to further violent protests and at times a vicious cycle in which every death leads to
more deaths.
Clearly, the security forces feel caught between the conundrum: to kill the militants or not. If
the operations are halted, the militants are likely to get a new lease of life. And if the
operations continue in full swing, the vicious cycle of violence will not be broken. The
experiment of coalition government in the state has already turned into a disaster, which
grows shockingly with each self-inflicted crisis. In the prevailing environment of minimal
governmental credibility and legitimacy, no public effort would suffice to wean the youth
away from insurgency and convince them of a life beyond compulsive India-bashing.
Though there is no single silver bullet which works in all counter-insurgency situations,
however, as argued by Kilcullen in the same book, the golden principle remains the same: ‘A
defection is better than a surrender; a surrender is better than a capture; and a capture is better
than a kill.” Realising the ineffectiveness of ‘killing strategy’, the Modi government recently
came out with a unilateral cessation of military operations during the month of Ramadan
which marks a significant shift in the government’s four-year old Kashmir policy. It also
constitutes a belated recognition that unwarranted trust on hard power cannot bear desired
results. In all probability, the ceasefire is likely to be extended beyond the month of
Ramadan. Though, the government still remains undecided about resuming peace talks with
Pakistan.
Though amnesty has been granted to those convicted of stone-pelting, however its value in
weakening militancy is less clear. Of course, the purpose is to encourage defections by the
misled and the less committed youth. If successful, their direct effect is to reduce the
insurgents’ ranks, and their indirect impact is the visible signs that the counterinsurgency is
succeeding. But the scenario in Kashmir is one of a rapidly evolving insurgency that has
repeatedly absorbed and adapted to past efforts to contain and defeat it. The grim sequence of
events initiated by the elimination of Burhan Wani in July 2016 demonstrates an irreversible
transformation of the political and grassroots dynamics, requiring more than just ‘hardening
of resolve’ to end the insurgency. What is needed at the moment is the deployment of new
socio-cultural resources, and a new operational cultureto wind down the militancy without
alienating more locals who could either join or influence their relatives and friends to join
various terrorist organisations.
India must know it has miserably failed in Kashmir. Kashmir conflict has to be resolved
democratically if this bloodbath has to end and the onus lies on India, it has to take the first
step and initiate the process. A referendum and meaningful dialogue is the only way
forward.
No doubt, there are number of humane hearts in India and Pakistan that are sensitive to
the pain and sufferings of Kashmiris and support the just cause of people but they are still
failing to make any impact. Suffering, it seems, has entered into a constant and unending
marriage with the conflict-ridden Kashmir with the state paying no heed to end or at least
address it.
The saga of human tragedy in Kashmir is brutally unprecedented in nature. Every form of
brutal human rights violation has been committed against the Kashmiris to quell their
sentiments for the just resolution of Kashmir issue. Time is ripe for India and Pakistan to
sit down and hammer out a solution for permanent peace in the subcontinent.
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Crowds march with the body of militant leader Burhan Wani for this funeral in the streets of
Jammu July 8. (Photo by Umar Shah)
After his death, Kashmir's separatist leaders called for a three-day strike. Protester's attacked
police stations, paramilitary camps and set government buildings on fire. "Weapons have been
looted from police stations," Additional Director General of Police S.M. Sahai told media.
Officials said police have been exercising restraint, using rubber bullets against stone-pelting
crowds. Shooting has only occurred in self-defense when the crowds attacked police stations
and camps.
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But Muslim militant leaders say police and security forces aimed their rubber pellets at people's
eyes to inflict maximum physical and psychological damage. "There are more than 100 people
with pellet injuries in their eyes who have been admitted in the hospital since the killing of Burhan
Wani," Sajad Ahmad, a doctor, told ucanews.com. "There are children who have injuries in their
eyes, forehead and stomach."
Blaming "vested interests" for the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti
appealed to parents not to let their children be misled. In her televised address, she appealed for
peace saying "some people are only interested in playing politics over dead bodies [but] it is the
family members of these slain youth who have to live with this pain forever."
"Unfortunately some elements are hell bent upon stirring up trouble, mayhem and bloodshed in
Kashmir for their own vested interests," she said.
NEW DELHI: The launch of the Kartarpur corridor between India and Pakistan was packed
with controversy on Monday as a credit war erupted between the Akali Dal, an ally of the
ruling BJP at the centre, and Punjab's ruling Congress. The proposed corridor has also seeded
a new point of conflict between Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and one of his
ministers, Navjot Singh Sidhu, who has been effusively pushing the project since his visit to
Pakistan in September for cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's swearing in as the
country's prime minister.
Here are top 10 points about the Kartarpur corridor project:
1. The Kartarpur corridor involves a road link for Sikh pilgrims to visit the famous Kartarpur
Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan, which is around three-four km from the International Border.
2. The 16th century Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur on the banks of the river Ravi is
important for Sikhs as Guru Nanak Dev, their main guru, spent 18 years here. The
gurudwara was established by the first Sikh Guru in 1522.
3. For decades, Sikh devotees have been demanding that India and Pakistan collaborate to build
a corridor linking it with the Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district.
4. Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had first suggested the corridor when he took the
bus trip to Lahore in 1999.
5. At a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 22, the
corridor from Dera Baba Nanak to the Pakistan border was approved. "Visa arrangements
will be made. The corridor will be 3 to 4 kilometers long," said union finance minister Arun
Jaitley, announcing the decision.
6. Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu and Amarinder Singh attended the ground-breaking
ceremony in Gurdaspur's Mann village near the border. On Wednesday, Pakistan will launch
its part of the project. Two union ministers will travel to Pakistan for the event after Foreign
Minister Sushma Swaraj declined the invite.
7. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has also declined to visit Pakistan, saying he would
not visit the country unless it ended violence against India.
8. His minister Navjot Sidhu has asked the centre for permission to visit Pakistan. He landed in
trouble in September when he was seen on camera embracing Pakistan Army Chief Qamar
Bajwa.
9. Mr Sidhu said the embrace was a spontaneous reaction to the Pak army chief saying
Islamabad was ready to proceed on the Kartarpur corridor on Guru Nanak's 550th birth
anniversary. His boss Amarinder Singh, however, was far less friendly towards the Pak army
chief yesterday as he said "Which army teaches to violate ceasefire and kill jawans on the
other side? Which army teaches to send people to attack Pathankot and Amritsar? This is
cowardice."
10. In another controversy hours before the ceremony in Gurdaspur, a Congress minister pasted
black-tape on his name and that of Amarinder Singh from a plaque, objecting to the names of
Akali Dal leaders on it.
A political row over the Kartarpur corridor has erupted after Navjot Singh Sidhu, a
minister in the Congress-led Punjab government, claimed he was told by Pakistan
Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa that Islamabad would grant access to the
Gurdwara Darbar Sahib on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, in 2019.
Sidhu had crossed the border to attend the oath-taking ceremony of Imran Khan last
month, during which he was seen speaking with Bajwa before the two embraced.
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Speaking to the media after the event, Sidhu said he attended the event as a friend,
not a politician. “I was not expecting it, but Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar
Javed Bajwa told me they had been considering to open Kartarpur corridor on the
occasion of 550th birthday anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. I was surprised by his
words and hugged him for that.”
“Gen Bajwa Sahab hugged me and said ‘We want peace’. So, let’s swim in a blue
ocean and shun red ocean. It’s my dream,” he added.
What is the Kartarpur corridor?
There has been a long-standing demand to open a corridor from India to Pakistan
to allow pilgrims to enter Pakistan and visit the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib at
Kartarpur in Pakistan’s Narowal district. The gurdwara is built at the resting place
of Guru Nanak. He spent his last two decades here. Indians are not allowed the
visit this shrine. The corridor would allow devotees to walk to the shrine and return
in one day without a passport or visa.
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The issue remains complex as the shrine is three kilometres from the India-
Pakistan border.
Express Explained | What is the Sikh pilgrim corridor to Pakistan?
Sidhu met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Monday, in a bid to initiate
talks between India and Pakistan regarding the Kartarpur corridor. After the
meeting, Union Minister and Akali leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal claimed Sidhu was
“reprimanded” for “messing up” the issue. Badal said Swaraj accused Sidhu of
“misusing” the clearance he was granted to visit the neighbouring country.
“External Affairs Minister (Swaraj) reprimanded Sidhu for messing up Kartarpur
Sahib corridor dialogue and misusing political clearance granted for private visit
by hugging military chief responsible for killing our soldiers,” Badal claimed.
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Sheila Dikshit back as Delhi Congress chief to steer party in Lok Sabha polls
Sidhu, on the other hand, had said the meeting was “amicable”. He said, “My
meeting with the Union Minister went on for 15 minutes during which I handed
her a letter requesting her to send a formal request from the MEA to Government
of Pakistan, requesting for an early agreement and opening of the corridor
immediately after the current monsoon session.” He further claimed that the MEA
was preparing to write a formal letter to Pakistan on the issue.
Meanwhile, addressing the press, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said,
“Sidhu has a lot of admirers… somebody of that stature going there and then
hugging the chief of the army, an army about which in India we have very clear
feelings, it certainly has an impact on soldiers… it demoralises the people. I wish
Sidhu would have avoided it (hug).”
Also read | Sidhu says meeting with Swaraj fruitful, BJP says reprimanded for
behaviour
Has Pakistan reacted to the Kartarpur controversy?
Amid a row in India, the Pakistan foreign office Wednesday clarified that there has
been no formal communication between India and Pakistan. Spokesperson
Muhammad Faisal, however, added that Pakistan is open to talks on the issue.
A week earlier, he said in an earlier press conference that the country was waiting
for confirmation from India to move forward on the issue. “We are ready for talks
with India. We have also conveyed our position to the international community. It
remains for India to respond,” Faisal was quoted as saying by PTI.
Also read | Honour for us to host Sikh pilgrims, says Pakistan envoy
Sidhu an ‘anti-national’
Sidhu’s visit to Pakistan riled non-Congress parties. Punjab BJP president Shwait Malik
had said the party strongly objects as his visit was at at time when the nation was
paying tributes to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “He even hugged
Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa at the function. It is anti-
national,” he added.
The spokesperson of Shiromani Akali Dal Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, meanwhile,
said Sidhu’s conduct was unbecoming of a minister. “His public gestures have not
only hurt martyrs’ families but also countrymen in general. Sidhu went ahead with
the visit and violated all known protocols of not attending any celebratory function
during official periods of mourning.”
The Punjab Congress, meanwhile, defended Sidhu saying one should acknowledge
the sportsman spirit exhibited by him. “India has nothing to lose in Sidhu’s
diplomatic act. Those who are creating a shindig at Sidhu attending the ceremony
should realise that it was a sportsman inviting another. Sidhu has risen to the
occasion, showed a large heart by accepting the invite. Now, the ball is in the court
of Khan. It is to be seen whether Khan turns to be a true statesman or just ends up
being a puppet in the hands of Pakistani Army,” PPCC president Sunil Kumar
Jakhar said.
“Now with improved monetary prospects and scope for cutting edge work, Indian
organisations are a big draw for bright and promising minds,” says Shekhar Sanyal, country
head, IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), India. He elaborates, “A decade back
engineering firms in India largely (if not wholly) engaged in testing work for global
engineering projects. But today Indian engineering firms provide opportunities for
sophisticated R&D, innovation and high-end design.”
Substantiating Sanyal’s observation, Anand Pattani, associate vice president, Black &
Veatch, says, “For more than 40 years Black & Veatch has been working in India,
undertaking projects like power generation and water and sanitation that enhance quality of
life and support economic development. During this period we have seen notable changes.
Previously, Indian engineers may have had to seek work overseas to gain experience of
things which are at the top of the value chain. However, now we are able to support their
career development within our India offices, with the opportunity to work on global projects.
In recent years, we have recruited significant numbers of highly skilled Indian engineers and
designers to work in our Mumbai and Pune offices. The figure has grown from 245 in 2007 to
the current figure of nearly 400. In addition to supporting Black & Veatch’s work for clients
across the world, they are supporting critical human infrastructure projects in India.”
There’s a similar story in the domain of management. “In the fast-mushrooming venture
capital and private equity funded organisations there is an increasing need for top talent,
particularly at the middle and higher echelons of management,” says Himanshu Aggarwal,
CEO and director, Aspiring Minds, a Noida-based employability measurement firm. A
pronounced emphasis on professionalism, lucrative remuneration and, most importantly, the
opportunity to do work at par with the work in developed countries is making India Inc a
preferred choice for management graduates from leading Indian b-schools.
While on one hand the relatively newfound emphasis on retaining talent is translating to a
slew of training and development initiatives, on the other hand the concept of drawing career
roadmaps for highperforming employees in a consultative manner is gaining ground. This is
contributing to compound the appeal of India Inc. “This appeal is not just restricted to
Indians. There are numerous instances of expats coming to India for internships which speaks
volumes about our growing standards both in terms of work and corporate culture,” shares
Aggarwal.
And it is not just the employment prospects that are attractive for management graduates.
Entrepreneurship is another turf that is brimming with potential. “While there is a dearth of
infrastructure — supply chains for instance — one cannot discount the fact that it is a lot
easier to establish proof of concept (meaning demonstrated worth of the idea) in India as
compared to many other countries simply because the fiscal requirement for setting up
enterprises is significantly lesser,” observes Aggarwal. “The existing disadvantages can in
themselves translate to individual entrepreneurial opportunities. And people are realising this,
which explains the upsurge of start-ups specialising in e-supply chains that are engineered to
provide innovative, cost-effective and real time solutions to various business challenges,” he
adds.
This story of ‘India Inc shining’ is one part of the assurance that the country is marching
towards a knowledge economy. The other side of the assurance lies in the employability
quotient of our overall pool of engineers and managers. And here the facts are far from
heartening.
“Less than 25% of our engineers are not employable,” informs Shekhar Sanyal, country head,
IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), India. In fact, according to a recently
published report by Aspiring Minds, (basis AMCAT, which is one of India’s largest
employability tests) more than 25% engineers do not even possess the English
comprehension skills required to understand engineering school curriculum and only 57%
engineers can write grammatically correct sentences in English. And yes, there is an intrinsic
connection between engineers and managers as a considerable number of managers have
engineering degrees. So what is ailing our education system and how can the problem be
rectified so that we have a qualified workforce?
“The curriculum of an IIT or any other engineering school is pretty much the same. The
problem lies in the selection criteria. Many engineering colleges of our country have no
commitment to quality when it comes to screening potential students. All that they are
interested in is filling their intake capacity,” says Sanyal. He goes on to say that engineering
schools have to look beyond textbooks and involve the students in more rigorous practical
assignments.
Adding to this, Aggarwal says, “Part of the problem lies in the fact that many engineering
colleges are just keen to achieve 100% placement records. In that bid, students do not feel the
need to study really hard and develop a knowledge base. Passing exams and securing a job
becomes the obvious thing to do. Organisations can step in here and reverse this complacent
mindset. For one they can incentivise performance in certain hardcore technical domains that
in turn will encourage academic rigour in colleges.”
Young Indians prefer overseas employment even without a pay hike for better suited jobs,
according to the latest findings of Ma Foi Randstad.
About 60 percent of employees with higher education are willing to move abroad for a better
suited job even if the salary remains the same, Ma Foi Randstad's Workmonitor Survey 2011 -
Wave4, a quarterly review of 'mental mobility status' of employees says.
It finds that about 39 percent of employees with low level of education would move abroad just
for a better suited job that doesn't accompany a good pay.
In gender, the study says that a significantly higher proportion of men (79 percent) expect to go
abroad for work that promises higher pay as compared to women (65 percent).
Commenting on the findings of the survey, Ma Foi Randstad Managing Director and CEO E
Balaji says, "Attracting and retaining right talent would be the biggest challenge for any
organisation in the coming years. With technology advancements, many traditional systems like
eight hour work day and control approach are fast disappearing and impacting the work styles and
approach to work."
The growing opportunities have created a major change in the mindsets of the young employees,
for whom money is an important driver but they are also driven by work place flexibility, right
culture, challenging roles, career growth and bosses with inspirational approach towards work.
"Companies should re-orient their work culture to address employee needs, to succeed in the
emerging war for talent, which will become the key to retain their place in the marketplace," he
adds.
The survey further finds that India continued to remain the highest mobility index of 144 amongst
all the countries.
This is in line with the findings that emerged in all the previous eight quarterly surveys conducted
since first quarter of 2010.
The mobility index is least in Luxembourg with Germany and Italy following suit indicating least
employee churn.
About 45 percent of the workforce believes in focus on promotion and 34 percent believe in
doing something different, the survey notes.
This trend is consistent amongst all workgroups based on income, location, gender, type of
employment and such others.
The preference for moving into a higher position based on existing experience is higher than to
venture into a role that is different from their existing role, it says.
It also points out that about 81 percent of men expect to work beyond their retirement age and a
nearly equally high proportion of women (74 percent), expect to work beyond their retirement
age.
(Agencies)
56. The big fat Indian wedding
The big fat Indian weddings are just getting bigger and fatter. While many
Bollywood movies still struggle to make an entry into the 100 crore club,
there are many big and affluent celebrities and personalities who join that
easily by throwing the most lavish weddings.
Here are a few of the most lavish Indian weddings that crossed the 100 crore
mark.
In the year 2016, one of the most lavish Indian weddings took place in Italy.
Dubai-based Indian millionaire owning a pharmaceutical company, Yogesh
Mehta spent Rs 140 crore on his son, Rohan Mehta's three-day-long
extravagant wedding with Roshni, a London-based owner of a fashion
company. The wedding took place in Florence, Italy, from November 25
onwards.
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Attended by more than 500 people, it was a lavish affair with many luxury
hotels being booked for the guests. It also included breathtaking fireworks,
crystal chandeliers, and luxurious feasts for the guests. Mr Mehta made sure
that his son’s wedding was magical. It even got covered by the media of
Florence.
Check out the Unheard Love Story Of Rajiv Gandhi And Sonia Gandhi
Sahara chief, Subroto Roy spent a whopping Rs. 552 crores for his sons’
wedding in 2004. Both his sons, Seemanto and Sushanto got married on the
same day in the Sahara Village in Lucknow. The entire venue was decked up
like a royal bride and lit up with traditional torch lights, hundreds of lamps
and prism glasses. The glitzy and glamorous wedding saw a bevvy of celebs
such as Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Anil Ambani, Late Shri Baal
Thackeray and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The invite to this lavish wedding had a special chip embedded in it for the
easy identification of guests and to make sure that no gatecrashers could
enter. The food comprised of 101 unique cuisines from all over the world.
Shiamak Davar’s dance troupe entertained the guests on the occasion.
Subroto Roy also got 101 underprivileged girls married on the occasion of
his sons’ wedding. And, he even distributed food to over one and a half lakh
beggars.
Congress MP Kanwar Singh Tanwar spent over 250 crores on his son Lalit
Singh Tanwar’s wedding with Yogita Jaunapuria in Delhi, in 2011. The
bride’s parents gifted a Bell 429 five-seater helicopter to the groom. The
guest list of this wedding included about 15,000 people. Each guest received
11,000 rupees as shagun. Those who attended the lagan function got a 30
gms silver biscuit, a safari suit and Rs 2100 cash each. A whopping 21 crore
was spent only on the tika ceremony for the groom's family.
The bride was adorned in diamonds and the groom looked dapper in a
designer black velvet sherwani. The food comprised of over a hundred
delicacies including thirty types of kulfis. Be it the glittering wedding venue,
the host of VVIP guests or entertainment, this wedding was an epitome of
glamour and opulence.
Must Read: This Super-Fun Lip Dubbed Wedding Video Got Shot In
One Go And It's Hard To Believe!
Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate, spent over Rs. 220 crores for his daughter
Vanisha’s wedding in 2004. Looking beautiful in a red and gold Sandeep
Khosla and Abu Jani lehenga, she married Amit Bhatia, a banker. The
engagement was held in the Palace of Versailles and the wedding took place
in the Chateau Vaux le Victome in France. The engagement dinner was
organised at the Jardin des Tuileries and the best Indian chefs were flown in
for the preparations.
Image Courtesy: The Bridal Box
For the reception, fireworks were arranged on the Eiffel tower. It was also
reported that celebrities like Kylie Minogue and Shah Rukh Khan were paid
a whopping £300,000 for their appearance. Apart from them, other B-town
stars like Aishwarya Rai, Akshay Kumar and many others performed at the
wedding. It was also reported that Javed Akhtar wrote a special play based on
the couple's love story, which was performed by Mittal family. Guests from
India were flown down in 12 private jets. The wedding celebrations lasted for
six long days.
Around the world there is a growing interest in youth and politics. Some political groups are
changing to respond to the growing number of young people who want to affect the political
system. Political ideologies appealing to youth that were once considered “fringe” beliefs are
becoming mainstreamed, and more young people are associating themselves with non-
popular political parties. More young people than ever before are actually becoming engaged
in local community campaigns and other political activities. Youth can change the world
through politics by becoming actively, meaningfully and substantially involved throughout
political parties and beyond.
Running for Office — Whatever age they are, young people can run for office anywhere in
the world as an act of protest; to make a stand; or to draw attention. Building momentum for
single candidates requires they remain committed to the causes that get them elected; pushing
a political party or platform requires staunch champions for youth in politics.
Youth as Voters — Fighting for youth suffrage and demanding youth rights is a platform for
youth voters. Another avenue for youth as voters is a protest vote. Going to a voting place
and casting a blank ballot can show youth dissatisfaction with the current political system.
Youth as voters can also vote for a youth candidate who may be foreign to the political
system, but young and capable of sharing youth voice.
Training — Training young people to change the world through politics means teaching
them the skills they need to become involved. These include communication, problem-
solving, change management and conflict resolution skills. It also means participating in
knowledge-sharing activities designed to build their capacity for powerful action.
Inspiration — After 12, 14, 17 or 21 years of being told their voices don’t matter in politics,
young people may need inspiration to become engaged. Never in history have children and
youth been seen or treated as serious political actors; given the opportunity, they will be.
Inspiration from stories, parables, biographies and other sources can help prepare and sustain
youth in politics.
ackground :-
Youth have always been in politics especially at the time of reform movements. Most of
these young people are in informal politics rather than formal politics. Ex – Social
movements, Pressure groups etc.
There are some formal student wings in political parties dedicated to the young peoples’
participation in politics. Ex – Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Indian Youth
Congress etc.
Negative side :-
Young people tend to have idealistic and unrealistic visions for society, which may not be
successful in implementation.
They lack experience. Experience teaches tolerance and the ability to have realistic
visions.
Young people can easily be manipulated and can be used as mere puppets in the hands of
older politicians. This can be clearly seen in the violence and destruction of public
properties by a few student groups.
Hindrances :-
In Uganda, five seats are reserved for youth representatives in the parliament.
‘National Youth Parliament’ in Srilanka influences National youth policies.
Youth enrollment campaign in Australia educates young voters with fun activities.
Conclusion :-
There is a dearth of young talent in the present politics. Youth should be given the
opportunity to prove themselves by making politics accessible to the them. The right balance
of young talent and experienced politicians can lead to the cleaning of politics and can restore
the public faith in the political system.
Afterwords :- Do you support the participation of young people in politics? And what are
your thoughts about this topic? Feel free to express your opinion in the comment section.
Procurement Price
The major objectives of MSP are to support farmers from distress sales at
severely low prices and to procure foodgrains for public distribution.
Ideally, the market price will always remain higher than the MSP fixed by
the government. With government guarantee, the farmer can always sell
at the MSP if he/she cannot procure a better price elsewhere.
Therefore, the demand to raise MSP has been one of the major points in
most farmer protests given that it directly dictates the farmer’s income.
While there are many other non-price factors which have an long-
term impact on agricultural development such as technology, irrigation,
development of infrastructure, market reforms, better procurement, and
storage facilities and institutions, MSP has always remained contentious
as it is directly linked with the farmer’s pocket and is tangible.
Current Status of MSP: Pros, Cons & what can be done better?
The MSP just saw a 50% hike much to the relief of many farmers. The
trouble with MSP is that while it is touted as an all-important factor for
farmers promising an instant rise in their income and stability, it also has
many drawbacks in implementation.
Pros of MSP:
It considers various factors when fixing the price and does not leave the
farmer at the mercy of the market.
Procurement for public distribution system and buffer stock for food
security come from this policy.
It has a heavy influence on market prices and also helps the farmer grow
production and match up with other sectors in terms of income.
MSP covers numerous costs such as the cost of sowing (A2) and
labour (FL). These considerations are controversial with suggestions that it
should be based on comprehensive costs (C2), which also include land
rent costs.
Too much of a hike on MSP either paves way for inflationary effects on
the economy, with a rise in prices of foodgrains and vegetables, or loss to
government treasury if it decides to sell at a lower price as compared to
the higher MSP it bought at.
MSP is a nationwide single price policy. However, the actual costing for
production varies from place to place, more severely so in areas lacking
irrigation facilities and infrastructure. Thus, not all farmers have equal
benefits.
Market prices should ideally never be below MSP. If they fall below the
MSP, in concept, the farmer can always sell it to the government, which
will then resell it or store as buffer. However, practically this does not
always happen. The market value in many cases does fall below MSP due
to lack of infrastructure and procurement apparatus on the
government’s end.
MSP is notified for 23 crops, but effectively ensured only for two-three
crops.
Thus, MSP while still being significant, is not the only go-to solution for
solving all farmer woes.
Why is it provided?
The idea behind MSP is to give guaranteed prices and assured market to the farmers and save
them from the price fluctuations.
It shields farmers from the unwarranted fluctuation in prices caused by the variation in supply
(largely influenced by the monsoon, drought), lack of market integration, information asymmetry
and other elements of market imperfection afflicting the agricultural markets.
The guaranteed price and assured market are expected to encourage higher investment and in
adoption of modern technologies in agricultural activities.
Further, with globalization resulting in freer trade in agricultural commodities, it is very
important to protect farmers from the unwarranted fluctuation in prices, manipulated by the
international level price variations.
Recent happenings
For the 2018-19 crop season, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs recently announced an
increase in minimum support prices to 50% above the cost of production. The Committee
approved the MSP of 14 Kharif (summer grown) crops.
The Modi government termed it as the “historic increase.”
The announced MSPs also include a ₹200 per quintal increase in the MSP for paddy, which is
likely to inflate the food subsidy bill.
In a press briefing Rajnath Singh, the Home Minister of India, said the hike would boost farmers’
income and purchasing capacity, and have a positive impact on the wider economy, and played
down fears of rising inflation due to higher food prices.
Criticism
This decision, taken by the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came just an
year before the next general election. So, more than a beneficiary measure it is being considered
as a step to garner the votes of farmers.
There is a significant variance between what the government considers as the cost of production
and what the farmer incurs.
According to the Government of India, Production Cost = Actual Expenses on seeds, fertilizers,
irrigation etc. (A2) + Unpaid Family labor (FL)
Actual Production Cost (C2) = Actual Expenses on seeds, fertilizers, irrigation etc. (A2) +
Unpaid Family labor (FL) + Rentals or interest on Land
The announcement of increase is being considered as the betrayal of the BJP’s 2014 poll
promise. According to the Bharatiya Kisan Union leader, “What has been announced by the
Centre is an eyewash.” He mentions “If MSP had been announced on C2 basis, then paddy price
would have risen by at least Rs. 700 per quintal, but the government has only increased it by Rs.
200 per quintal.”
The Visit India Year, launched by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in China,
is a welcome initiative that indicates the Modi Government's commitment to
developing the tourism sector to its full potential. However, to realise these plans, it
administration has to look beyond a glitzy advertisement campaign. The Incredible
India campaign, though ground-breaking and very successful in its own right, is now
more than a decade old and past its expiry date. A new idea idea is needed but,
more importantly, the focus has to be on improving the infrastructure of the tourism
industry — from making it easier for foreign tourists to avail Indian visas, to
presenting all that the country has to offer in a palatable and indeed profitable
manner, to improving the overall law and situation.
The Government has already made a good start in this regard by easing visa
processes: In November 2014, the visa on arrival facility, available to only 12
countries, was extended to 43 more and the results are already showing. In
December 2013 alone, tourist arrivals jumped by 421.6 per cent, compared to the
same period in 2013, according to the Ministry of Tourism. The Government must
also focus on making India more accessible to the world — this, of course, means
more number of flights to Delhi and Mumbai, but also additional flights to cities like
Kolkata and Chennai, as well as better rail and road connectivity within the country.
As of now, only a few States (usually the ones like Rajasthan and Kerala that derive
a large chunk of their revenue from tourism) have good transport facilities. Most
others are plagued by potholed highways and trains that run several hours behind
schedule.
This is also true for hotels, tourist lodges and youth hostels; the entire sector needs a
capacity augmentation. Another aspect that requires immediate attention is law and
order. Popular tourist destinations are often also cesspools of unscrupulous agents
looking to make a quick buck at the cost of the unsuspecting tourist. This, of course,
is not just an Indian problem but it can surely be handled better. We need an
enabling state that will keep a close watch on the sector without destroying
entrepreneurial spirit with over-regulation. Sanitation is also a major put off,
especially where tourists from the luxury segment are concerned. Hope the Clean
India campaign will make a difference in this regard.
The Government also needs to think out-of-the-box to make the most of India's
tourism potential. For example, there is a lot that can be done to make religious
tourism more attractive. Different circuits — such as the Buddhist circuit — need to
be developed and marketed aggressively. Also, given India's huge coast line,
tourism on cruise ship can be promoted. There's also a lot of scope for adventure
tourism (think river rafting and mountain climbing). Medical tourism is also a gro wing
sector and is expected to grow at 30 per cent this year alone.
India is planning to cut taxes on travel and tourism in next month’s federal
budget and give more incentives to the $210 billion sector, government
sources said, hoping to boost economic growth and create more jobs.
The move could add to a domestic tourism boom in the world’s second
most populous nation, where low inflation and rising incomes are changing
lifestyles and consumption patterns of an estimated 250 million middle-
class Indians. With scores of destinations introduced on airline routes last
year, air travel is also surging.
India’s tourism sector grew over 10% in the six months ending September,
compared to near 8% in the year-ago period. According to an industry
report, tourism employs 40 million people in India and could add 10
million jobs in a decade.
Tour operators including Cox & Kings and Thomas Cook are also likely to
gain.
In India tourists, on average, pay 30% tax on hotel rooms and travel
compared with less than 10% in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, said
Pronab Sarkar, president of the Indian Association of Tour Operators
(IATO).
The government will offer incentives to more regional airlines this year to
cover new, under-served airports, the official added.
CHEAPER FLIGHTS
India needs about 200,000 new hotel rooms, Tourism Minister K.J.
Alphons told parliament this week.
“We have reached a plateau point and need more resources to create new
infrastructure and develop tourist packages,” Alphons later told Reuters,
adding there was huge potential in developing areas that were not the usual
tourist destinations.
Hotel occupancy levels in India are at their highest levels since 2008, even
though many hotel chains have raised prices.
The need for rooms has been spotted by foreign investors with Japan’s
SoftBank Group backing start-ups like OYO Rooms, which has emerged as
the largest aggregator of budget accommodation across the country with
hotels in over 200 destinations.
One major driver of the domestic tourism boom has been the launch in
2017 of five regional budget airlines on over 100 routes, which are given
incentives by the government to offer cut-price flights to uncovered and
remote areas, encouraging thousands of families to explore flying for the
first time.
Domestic airlines carried 10.6 million passengers in the first eleven months
of 2017, up 17% from the year-ago period - encouraging some established
players like Spicejet, Jet Airways and Vistara, a joint venture between the
Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, to start flights to new locations.
ONLINE PLAYERS
Tour operators said double-digit hikes in urban wages, coupled with an
over 25% rise in the benchmark Sensex index last year, have contributed to
the domestic tourism boom.
At the same time over 9 million foreigners visited India in the first 11
months of 2017, up 15.6% from a year ago.
Domestic tourists, who account for 88% of the sector, are increasingly using
online portals for hotel and travel bookings.
Online operators say tourism could emerge as the new engine of growth
after the IT sector but that it needs government support.
“The government must lower the tax burden, ease rules and build
infrastructure if it wants to ensure 15-20% annual growth in tourism in
coming years,” said Sarkar of IATO. Reuters
The Union Tourism Ministry aims to double the number of foreign tourist
arrivals in three years, said K.J. Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism.
“India has done well on the tourism front in 2017,” Mr. Alphons said at
the OMT Mumbai 2018 travel show here on Thursday.
“We crossed the mark of over 10 million foreign tourists and it is time to
celebrate that. Along with the international tourist arrivals, including
NRIs, we have crossed over 17 million tourists within the last year,” he
said.
“These are very encouraging numbers and the government is working
towards doubling both foreign tourist arrivals and foreign exchange
earnings in the next three years,” he added.
“To make this possible, we are working with the State governments and
with the industry since they have a big role to play. So we are all working
together andto make this possible,” he added.
The Minister said in dollar terms, foreign exchange earnings from tourism
sector increased 22.2% which was very high as compared with the global
growth rate of less than 5%.
“We have contributed greatly to the economy in India through tourism
which is 6.4% of the total GDP. The travel and tourism industry also
employs over 12.6% of the total population in the country. With the
biggest multiplier effect, it creates jobs for all segments of the society and
thus, the Government of India is keen on promoting it,” he added.
The Minister said the government would come up with a tourism policy
within two to three months for holistic development of the sector and
ensure that more foreign tourists visit India.
Have you ever had a student tell a lie to get out of trouble? Or tell a
story to impress their friends? I think lying is something ALL children
try out a time or two. Most of our students will have heard an adult
say “be honest!” or “tell the truth.” Unfortunately though, most
children have never had someone discuss the importance of being
trustworthy…or the effects of being dishonest.
I am a firm believer that our students must understand the W HY
behind whatever we are asking them…especially when it comes to
their character and behavior. Ideally we will teach students about
kindness and honesty in such a way that it sticks with them for many
years. Not because they are afraid of getting in trouble, but because
they understand WHY it’s so important.
To prepare, buy a bag of frozen peas and place them in a ziploc bag
(allow them to thaw). Then buy a bag of candy (ideally green but it
can be anything.) Tell students you have some candy for them and
pass it out. Allow students to eat their candy. Ideally someone will
realize it’s not candy. Tell them you’re sorry…you were just teasing
them. THEN pass out the candy. You should have one or two
students that say they don’t believe you. Explain that because you
lied to them once, it’s hard for them to trust you again. That’s just
like in real life! W hen we lie (even to be funny) it’s hard for others to
trust us again.
4. Read-Alouds
Here are a list of my favorite read-alouds about honesty. You can
find the links below.
Punishment and anger aren’t always efficient when trying to stop children from
lying. As parents, we must teach them the importance and value of honesty from
an early age.
One of our obligations as parents is to teach our children the value of being honest.
After all, their future could depend on it.
This topic isn’t as simple as it seems. Teaching our children to be honest isn’t
the same as teaching them to tie their shoes. There are many factors that can
affect how a child learns about values.
Teaching children about virtues is an important duty that requires a great deal of
patience. There are many useful tips that parents can use to teach their children the
value of honesty.
Lying in order to receive objects or attention are two key reasons. Another reason
why children lie is to avoid punishment – parent should be careful with this one.
Being too strict can result in children who lie more often.
Children often lie because they confuse reality with fantasy and also out of
imitation. If a child’s role-model starts lying, the child will undoubtedly start lying
as well.
When should we start teaching them the difference
between lies and the truth?
It’s important to keep in mind that you can’t start teaching children about
values before the age of 3. Children under the age of 3 don’t have the capacity to
understand the importance of values.
As soon as they turn 3 however, it’s important for parents to be observant. It
isn’t enough for parents to teach; we must also observe our child’s behavior.
This will allow us to find out what makes the child lie. We can only deal with
this problem if we analyze it objectively.
We should also reprimand their lies with moderate and well oriented punishments.
Calling a child a liar can be very negative. After all, isn’t our objective to have our
children trust us?
The whole topic about the truth and lies has to do with more than just discipline or
morality. It’s about building confidence and mutual support to face hardships
together.
Trust is also key. If we express the pride felt when trust is shared and if we reward
them for being honest, they’ll understand the message.
If we’re honest, they’ll also be honest. This starts at home; we shouldn’t let our
children hear us lying. Parents are the models that their children follow, therefore
a lot will depend to a large extent on a parent’s behavior.
Nobody said it would be easy to teach children the value of honesty. Tolerance,
patience, analysis and trust are the best tools we have to achieve honesty at
home.
Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.
When it comes to small children and honesty, it’s not usually hard to find. With
older children and teens, the truth sometimes becomes more elusive. Here are a
few ideas to help guide your children on the correct honesty path:
The brutal truth should not always be spoken. Such as the hurtful comment
towards Aunt Becky mentioned in the opening. We have all heard the saying, “If
you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” One needs not lie
and say Aunt Becky is skinny. Just don’t say anything. Or find something else
about Aunt Becky that is positive. “That sure is a colorful shirt.” Spin. People
make a lot of money doing it. Spin works two ways, but when done for good, it’s a
wonderful tool to learn.
Correct morals and purity of spirit always trump protecting the feelings of
someone who is doing wrong. Wrong is always wrong. For instance, your son’s
best friend is cheating on tests and your son is fully aware. He has a duty to go to
his friend and advise him to quit. He’s hurting himself and cheating the others who
have honestly studied. If he refuses, then your son would have to tell the teacher
about what is going on. That is called the hard truth. Nobody wants to be put in
that position. Yet, life constantly puts us in these types of situations. As adults, we
are faced with all kinds of scams, rampant adultery, and general dishonesty. Teach
your children to stand strong on the side of righteousness.
As is always the case, you are the role model. You do not want your child to hear
you telling a lie. To see you perform a dishonest act. Yes, you could enter the
national park for free since there is no attendant. But the sign says $5 dollars. Put
your money in the slot and move along. Yes, it would make your life easier if
Grandma didn’t know you were in town this time. But your child is listening to
you on the phone telling her you don’t know when you’ll be there again. Are these
the traits you want to teach your children? Clean up your act. Those little eyes and
ears are always open.
Though it’s tempting to test them, try to avoid asking questions that give your child
a chance to not be honest. You saw your daughter spill red juice on the couch. No
need to ask, “Did you just spill your juice on the couch?” This leads her to believe
she might have a way out and could possibly pass blame elsewhere. Just tell her to
clean it up. She’ll have enough opportunities to tell the truth.
6. Truth Or Consequences
We all sin. Even children do. They will eventually lie to you and you will
eventually catch them. It’s important that there be consequences for their actions.
Appropriate discipline should be carried out and followed through. Make it so not
worth it to lie.
7. Correct Mistakes
Catching your child being dishonest is a good time to break out your teacher hat.
Help him correct the mistake. Talk about how he could have responded or reacted
differently. An example would be that your son came home with an Evan Longoria
rookie card. He obtained it by trading his friend two Pat Burrell cards. Obviously,
his friend knows nothing about baseball or really likes Pat Burrell. Either way, he
got swindled. Explain to your son that trades should include fair value on both
sides. Preying on the unaware is not a desirable character trait. Return the card and
work out a fair deal.
The most important character trait a person can possess keeping and following
through on promises made. This one thing alone will take a person very far in life.
To be trusted and deemed honorable is a crown even a king would envy. Teach
your children to be people who consider their word gold. When they give it, they
don’t break it. It is much harder than it sounds. Fool’s gold is easily found. The
real thing takes a lot of digging. Gold is highly sought after and is extremely
valuable. Just the kind of person you want your child to be.
Possessions can create all sorts of problems. The best policy is to teach a child
early on that what they have belongs to them. What other people have belongs to
that person. It is not OK to borrow a game and never return it. It’s awesome to
share, but the item must always be returned. We all have that neighbor who
borrows our trimmer and never brings it back. You don’t want your son to be that
guy. It might sound harmless, but honesty does not take days off. Value your own
possessions and keep your hands off your neighbors’.
10. Look for honest friends
Show me your friends and I will show you your future. If your child’s friends lie
and cheat, so will they. But if your child’s friends are upstanding and honest clean
through, your son or daughter will be that much better off. Keep an ear out for any
of your children’s friends who lie. They’re a terrible example for your children.
December 5, 2011Posted byIndia BriefingReading Time:3 minutesReading Mode
Dec. 5 – After depreciating to a record low of 52.73 against the U.S. dollar on
November 22, the Indian rupee (INR) rose in value to 51.206 per dollar on Friday to
complete the currency’s first weekly advance since October.
The Indian rupee is under great stress as overseas investors are paring their
exposure to Asia’s third-largest economy amid international uncertainty and
mounting worries over the domestic economy.
On November 21 alone, overseas funds sold more than US$500 million worth of
Indian-listed shares over the five trading sessions, reducing net inflows for 2011 to
under US$300 million – a tiny sum compared with the record investments of more
than US$29 billion experienced in 2010. The rupee has lost more than 10 percent of
its value this year, making it one of the worst performing currencies in Asia.
The rupee’s modest 2.1 percent advance against the dollar last week occurred as six
monetary authorities, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, agreed to lower the interest
rate on dollar-liquidity swap lines.
The premium banks pay to borrow dollars overnight from central banks will fall by
half a percentage point to 50 basis points, the Fed said. It coordinated the move with
the European Central Bank and monetary authorities in Canada, Switzerland, Japan
and the U.K.
“Sentiment has improved slightly after the central banks’ actions,” Vikas Babu, a
Mumbai-based currency trader at state-owned Andhra Bank, told Bloomberg News.
“This is unlikely to last long as only the symptoms of the crisis are being tackled, and
I expect dollar-buying to resume soon.”
The exchange rate of the Indian rupee is dependent upon the market conditions.
Though, in order to sustain effective exchange rates, the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) actively trades in the US$/INR currency market. The RBI also intervenes in the
currency markets to maintain low volatility in exchange rates and remove excess
liquidity from the economy. The rupee is pegged by the Bhutanese ngultrum at par
and with the Nepali rupee at INR1 to NPR1.6.
India has a managed floating exchange rate system. This means that the Indian
government intervenes only if the exchange rate gets out of hand by increasing or
reducing the money supply as the circumstances demand.
Impact on economy
Rupee appreciation makes imports cheaper and exports more expensive. According
to intelligence reports by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of
India, sectors like petroleum and petroleum products, drugs and pharmaceuticals
and engineering goods – which have import inputs of as much as 77 percent, 19
percent and 21 percent, respectively – will gain if the rupee appreciates. They would
have to pay less for the imported raw materials which would increase their profit
margins.
Likewise, a depreciating rupee makes exports cheaper and imports expensive. So, it
is good news for industries such as IT, textiles, hotels and tourism which generate
income mainly from exporting their products or services. Rupee depreciation makes
Indian goods and services cheaper for overseas buyers, thus leading to increases in
demand and higher revenue generation. The foreign tourists would find it cost
effective to come to India, therefore increasing the business of hotel, tours and travel
companies.
India’s IT sector is dependent on foreign clients, especially the United States, for
more than 70 percent of its revenue. When an IT company gets a project from a
client, it pre-decides on the length of the contract and the cost of the project. The
contracts with U.S. clients are usually quoted in U.S. dollar terms. So, the fluctuation
in the exchange rate can bring about a considerable difference in the performance of
a company.
Some companies undertake a range of measures like hedging exchange risks using
forwards and futures contracts. This helps in mitigating some of the losses due to
exchange rate fluctuations, but none-the-less the impact is substantial.
The exchange rate is a significant tool that can be used to examine many key
industries; with fluctuations potentially having a serious impact on the economy,
industries, companies, and foreign investors. Rupee appreciation is generally helpful
for industries which rely closely on imported inputs while depreciation of the rupee is
welcome news for industries which are exporting a majority of their products.
IndiaToday.in
New Delhi
October 31, 2018
UPDATED: October 31, 2018 09:40 IST
Drone shot of Statue of Unity on Sadhu Bet island on the Narmada river. (Photo: Chandradeep
Kumar)
HIGHLIGHTS
Statue of Unity will be able to withstand wind velocity up to 60 m/s, vibration and earthquakes
The statue was built by Padma Bhushan recipient sculptor Ram V Sutar
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Statue of Unity in Surat, Gujarat today at
around 11:30 am.
The Statue of Unity is built in dedication to Iron Man Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who served as
the first home minister of independent India. Sardar Patel is credited with uniting all 562 princely
states in pre-independent India to build the Republic of India -- hence the name of the statue. The
date for the inauguration of the statue (October 31, 2018) also marks the 143rd birth anniversary
of Sardar Patel.
The Statue of Unity will be open to the public from November 3. Tickets can be booked online
at www.soutickets.in.
Located on the Sadhu Bet island, near Rajpipla on the Narmada river, the Statue of Unity is
located between the Satpura and the Vindhya mountain ranges. A 3.5 km highway will be used to
connect the statue to Gujarat's Kevadia town.
Statue of Unity is built to symbolise India's unity and integrity. (Image: Twitter/souindia)
Here are 10 interesting facts that distinguish the Statue of Unity from other statues in the
world:
1. The Statue of Unity is the tallest statue in the world. At 182 metres, it is 23 metres taller than
China's Spring Temple Buddha statue and almost double the height of the Statue of Liberty (93
metres tall) in US.
Graphic by Tanmoy Chakraborty.
2. The statue will be able to withstand wind velocity up to 60 m/s, vibration and earthquakes.
3. It was built within three-and-a-half years by an army of over 3,000 workers, including 300
engineers from infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T).
4. As Gujarat chief minister, Modi had announced the project in 2010 ahead of civic elections in
Ahmedabad. The project, which cost Rs 3,050 crore, was fully funded by the Gujarat
government.
5. The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Rashtriya Ekta Trust (SVPRET), a special purpose vehicle set up
by Modi in 2011, arranged some 129 tonnes of iron implements from nearly 100 million farmers
in 169,000 villages across all states to construct the base of the statue in the 'Loha' campaign.
Drone image of the statue’s feet and surrounding area. (Photo: Chandradeep Kumar)
6. The Statue of Unity was built by Padma Bhushan recipient sculptor Ram V Sutar and intricate
bronze cladding work was done by a Chinese foundry, the Jiangxi Toqine Company (JTQ).
A crane lifts a piece of the bronze cladding to the head. (Photo: Chandradeep Kumar)
The government superseded the IL&FS board under section 241(2) of the
New Companies Act, 2013. This section enables supersession of a
company’s board to prevent it from further mismanagement in order to
protect public interest. The ministry of corporate affairs moved the Mumbai
bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday under the
same section for overhauling the board and replacing it with its nominees.
The tribunal, presided over by M.K. Shrawat and Ravi Kumar Duraisamy,
approved the names of six directors, including Uday Kotak, managing
director of Kotak Mahindra Bank; G.N. Bajpai, former chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Board of India; G.C. Chaturvedi, chairman of
ICICI Bank Ltd; former bureaucrats Vineet Nayyar (also a former vice
chairman of Tech Mahindra); Malini Shankar and Nand Kishore.
“Fresh funds will be infused when the new board comes up with a revival
plan,” said Sanjay Shorey, joint legal director in the ministry of corporate
affairs, who was representing the government before the tribunal. “We have
identified a few people who have credibility.” The government further
argued that the new board should be empowered to change the boards of
IL&FS subsidiaries as well.
Shorey also informed the tribunal that the Serious Fraud Investigation
Office (SFIO) had initiated an investigation into the matter.
“Ravi Parthasarathy, along with CEOs and CFOs, was painting a rosy
picture of the company deliberately despite knowing the truth,” argued
Shorey. He added that the difficulties of the company could create issues
for the financial sector as a whole and that was why the government wanted
to change the board.
This is the second major firm where the government has taken control to
salvage the situation. In 2009, authorities took control of the affairs of
Satyam Computer Services.
“We will have to see how the board and government pull out a rabbit from
the hat,” said Krishnava Dutt, managing partner of law firm Argus Partners,
arguing that the problems of IL&FS were much larger than those of Satyam.
“Someone will have to take the heat while salvaging the situation, the
question is who will take and how much,” said Dutt.
odi government has reportedly moved the National Company Law Tribunal
(NCLT) in Mumbai, seeking to supersede its board with a new 10-member board
ed by veteran banker Uday Kotak. Acording to a moneycontrol report, the
government counsel told NCLT that directors of IL&FS had "failed to discharge
their duties", adding that the company has been showing a "rosy" picture of its
balance sheet. The counsel also expressed concerns over the cascading impact of
the IL&FS crisis on the overall economy.
The Government also warned that various mutual funds will be collapsed if IL&FS
will collapses.
The IL&FS debt problem seems to be rising out of the infrastructure financing side
and has nothing to do with the financials of other non-banking financial
companies, a top banker said.
BoB, which is in the midst of amalgamation with two smaller banks – Mumbai-
based Dena Bank and Bengaluru-based Vijaya Bank – is seeing a revival of credit
growth and strong recovery cycle. “Credit growth is getting stronger for banks and
the operating environment is improving. IL&FS is a one-off case which is being
tackled by the government and its shareholders, but for the broader market there
are no issues,” Jayakumar said.
But the cost of finance is going to rise and loans are going to get dearer as the
demand for credit goes up with the recovery in the economic growths, he said. “In
general, there is an upward bias in interest rates. Customers have to brace for a
higher interest rate regime. Home loans are variable priced in India. So they have
to accept the volatility in interest rates.”
67. Reality TV
So, you're home on the couch in front of your new plasma screen with a few
hours to kill. You start channel-surfing and come across a show with people
slurping a concoction of maggots and hissing beetles for a chance to win 50
grand. On channel after channel you see shows with truckers driving across
treacherously icy roads in Alaska, two people telling folks what not to wear,
and crab fisherman braving a mother of a storm. Now you're asking yourself,
when did Elaine, Jerry, George and Kramer get replaced by Lauren, Heidi,
Audrina and Brody? Who in the world are New York and Tila Tequila, and why
do they have their own shows? Just when did reality TV get to be so popular?
And, finally, how do people come up with this stuff -- and how real are these
shows anyway?
Reality TV has morphed from radio game show and amateur talent
competition to hidden camera stunt show to dating show to documentary-style
series. The genre now encompasses unscripted dramas, makeover sagas,
celebrity exposés, lifestyle-change shows, dating shows, talent extravaganzas
and just about any kind of competition you can think of (and a few that you
probably can't). In the fall 2007 season, there were more than a dozen reality
shows in prime-time slots on major networks and cable channels. On any
given night, you can watch "The Biggest Loser," "Dancing with the Stars,"
"The Real World," "I Love New York," "Beauty and the Geek," "America's Next
Top Model," "Ultimate Fighter," "The Bachelor," "Run's House" or "Project
Runway" -- to name just a few.
Why was reservation made in the first place some fifty to sixty years back? whether it
was Gandhi or Nehru or Radhakrishnan every one wanted reservation and there are
eloquent speeches given by these people in the parliament and outside FOR
reservation. In it, they reitrate some basic problems.
1. Caste system has laid bare our education and social life. So much so that there is
really not much that has been happening in the last one thousand years in the
country! India went under foreign rule but even before that the slide has started.
Slide is more or less connected with the strong implementation of caste system.
Demarcated education; meaning none other than the brahmins and kshatriyas were
supposed to learn. This has brought down the civilization from the pedestal that it
was to a phenomenal low. With controlled education, nothing could be achieved. if
we have learnt anything from the last one thousand years, that is this caste system is
useless and unless we scrap it completely and fully, there is no way to redeem this
country. It is looking up because the caste system has taken a back seat. So Target
number one was the CASTE SYSTEM. Reservations were aimed at removing caste
system. Have we removed it today? think about it yourself and answer truthfully to
yourself.
2. Apart from this there are two types of backward people who can be identified.
One, socially backward. The other, economically backward. Let me present both
separately.
3. I know a 'builder'. He is no engineer. But he has built more than 100 houses in
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. He is not educated. He has studied till 8th standard. He
learnt everything by practice. He talks like a ruffian. He cannot write. Now, his
daughter or son write for him, the quotations and whatever. He draws plans. Gets it
approved. Above all he makes almost three times what you and I make as software
engineers; in crores of rupees a year. Economically he is not backward. His son
knows to read and write that is all. He is not an engineer either. He failed three times
in 9th standard and joined his father; passed stones to the mason. Hold it! He knows
more about building a roof with out pillars spanning 40 feet than the engineers and
the diploma holders. Do you want to call him backward? You talk to him for five
minutes, you will run away from him. He speaks the worst language. He is socially
backward. Target 2: Social backwardness should be brought down. Have we brought
this down?
4. Economic backwardness doesn't need any introduction. There are economically
backward muslims, hindus, christians and people of all faith and caste. Target 3:
Economic backwardness should not be an excuse for pulling down a good student.
Have we achieved this?
5. What has reservation achieved to alleviate the sufferings and achieve the targets?
Really not much. It has done a very minor change and almost no impact in many of
the areas.
6. Reservation worked on all these factors. Remember they are all very much
interconnected. If you are economically backward, you cannot be socially too far
ahead. And the caste system is the one that puts its foot down and says that these
people should remain as they are. Reservation come in two shapes to cater to this
requirement. One, reservation in education. Two, reservation in work.
7. Ideally speaking only the best should be given opportunity at all spheres that they
should go into. Now, for a suppressed group, that never had seen the letters for over
one thousand years (imagine one thousand years of reservation, by force), to learn
something new is an uphill task. Even to get into the school, it would take pressure
for one or two generations or in other words, fifty to one hundred years before
children make it a habit to go to school. And if you want them to compete with people
who are already in the prime, it is like India playing Bermuda. You will have to wait
for these people to become a Bangla desh before they compete and defeat. There
are a few who do come up and shine.
But that is no reason to say that all of them are advanced and no reservations are
needed. this is all about social backwardness. It has nothing to do with economic
backwardness. Since social backwardness in this country is dependent on the caste,
the tribe that they are, they need to be offered reservations only on this basis.
Reservation in education should not be questioned at all. Only what needs to be
questioned would be how much. It was really wrong on the part of the Supreme
Court to pass an hasty judgement. Thinking that they are penalising the centre for
not having done their homework, they have penalised one generation of boys.
I hope you would have noticed in most families, if the father is a doctor then the
children more likely are doctors as well. If the father is from IITs or IIMs, don't be
surprised if the boy also studies at least from these institutes if not from Harvard or
Stanford. I know a family where the father and mother are IAS officers; all the
children are also IAS officers. (Three of them). It is easy for an IAS officer to breed
an IAS officer. It still works like the caste system that you want to fight against. It is
very difficult for any other person to get into the UPSC that easily, unless there is
some way by which this can be broken.
8. Talking of the work related reservations, these work towards setting right the
economic backwardness in addition to social. Today, after 50 years of reservations
in banks and insurance companies, do you know what is the percentage of non-
forward class people in the top management positions? Not even 5%. Take for
instance, the Indian Bank, there is not even a single backward class person in the
top three rungs of the ladder! Take any insurance company, there are branch
managers from the backward class. That is it, there is no way they could progress
beyond this. Do you mean to say that not even a single backward class person fits
into the so called insurance or bank requirements for a senior person? Do you know
what is the population ratio? Non-forward caste people are nearly 70% of the
population whereas there is less than 5% people in the top management of public as
well as private sector companies. Who is being discriminated against? Tell me what
percentage of the judiciary's top positions are occupied by backward classes.
Mind you, if the reservations are removed, make no mistakes, we are going back by
1000 years.
Is Reservation An Evil Or A
Necessity?
Sidharth Shankar in Politics, Society
2 years ago
In this article, I will try to throw some light on how reservation isn’t as bad as it is shown by
the anti-reservation section in our society and how you can make your peace with it. I know
plenty of you must have already started hating me or thinking of cuss words for me but hear
(read) me out with an open mind and then you can say whatever you want.
First of all, let me start by stating that reservation is an ‘unfortunate’ system. I am using the
word ‘unfortunate’ to define it because of the existence of the caste system, which is the
reason for reservation. Caste is an unfortunate and ugly truth in Indian society.
I will try to make you understand how reservation is unfortunately a necessity and how it
does not affect you as badly as you think. I will start with the latter and I would expect you to
read this as objectively as possible.
People use the low cut-offs of reserved categories, especially SCs and STs, to show how
unfair it is for the general category students and how easy it is to enter into a good institution
or get a job for people who get the benefits of reservation. But they comfortably omit the fact
that the seats reserved for SCs and STs mostly remain unoccupiedand still the major
percentage of lower caste people are poor. If SCs/STs could get into IIM merely by leaving
their answer sheets empty (as it is claimed by anti-reservation groups), then why are there
still unoccupied reserved seats in these institutions?
Now, let’s talk about jobs. The majority of Central government jobs are occupied by people
belonging to upper castes. So, there are more chances of you getting a job if you belong to an
upper caste than people belonging to lower castes.
So, why do the upper castes feel cheated by this system? The answer is the lack of jobs. Our
government could not provide enough jobs for the huge and exponentially increasing
population of this country. And as a result, people vent their anger on reservation whereas
they should be asking for more jobs for everyone, but of course blaming reservation is easier
and perhaps more satisfactory.
Now, we come to the point of how reservation is still a necessity. I know most people will
hate me for saying this, but this is, unfortunately, true. Reservation is a necessity. Here again,
I would like to clarify that I agree that reservation is now used for political purposes and it is
also misused by people who do not deserve it and I am all against such misuse of reservation.
Having cleared that, I would like you to take note of an observation on Indian society.
Whether you like it or not, this is a fact that our society is divided into groups based on
castes. Reservation came into existence to end the dominance of certain groups and give the
neglected and oppressed groups a push so that they could become equal to the other groups.
Now I will be glad to imagine an India where castes don’t matter and people don’t show an
affinity towards their own castes, but that is sadly not the real world that we live in. That is
why it is necessary to give more chances to people from lower groups (castes) so that they
have some representation in the society which is otherwise dominated by upper groups
(castes) to maintain the balance and give oppressed a place in the society.
But you can see how these two tragedies are treated differently by our society and media.
While people mourn and care about the death of farmers (which is the right thing to do), no
one gives a damn about the dying sewage workers.
So you see, it’s not just a few well-to-do people from reserved category that get benefits from
reservations, as people tend to think. There are people who can leave this life of second-grade
citizens with the help of reservation.
So, if you could manage to have some sympathy and sense of belonging with the lower caste
people, for they are humans and your countrymen. India can never be a good country until
there are people who are ill-treated because of their castes. Just compare your sorrow with
theirs and I think you can find a way to make your peace with it.
Central govt employees to mandatorily avail at least 20 days of earned leave every year: Report
Vijay Mallya becomes first person to be officially tagged as a fugitive economic offender
MORE FROM THIS SECTION
The reservation goose that lays golden eggs
How Indian cinema evolved into being one of the most powerful modes of entertainment
Come June, the most anticipated news in India is the arrival of monsoons
and the promise it holds for the country's 119 million farmers and 144
million agricultural laborers directly involved with agriculture. The impact
of a good monsoon could be felt in the collective sigh of relief heard, when
IMD improved their long-range forecast for this year to 98% and ruled out
El Nino possibilities altogether.
With the monsoon going well, we may have a bumper production year in
2017-18, on the heels of a good 2016-17. In 2016, India produced its largest
ever cereal food grain estimated at 273 million tonnes. We also saw bumper
production in pulses, sugarcane and cotton. Agricultural budgets have gone
up from Rs 16,646 cr to Rs 41,855 crore in the last 3 years. And the
government has introduced many agro-centric initiatives like Pradhan
Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Soil health cards, Pradhan Mantri Krishi
Sinchayee Yojana and National Agriculture Market (eNAM). Minimum
Support Price (MSP) for different crops have also been enhanced regularly.
Our Prime Minister also pledged to double farmers' incomes by 2022 and
this certainly makes for a rosy picture.
Understanding why Indian farmers don't reap what they sow:
Despite this positive outlook, we recently saw intensive agitations across
states. While farmers may have genuine reasons to protest and demand
government support, often these protests are perceived as lawlessness by
general public. We must remember though, that farming is indeed a tough
job with earnings that hardly measure up to the hard work and toil
involved. In fact, annual earnings of a 3-acre farmer are much lower than
an IT sector or corporate newbie. For Indian farmers, this boils down to
survival each season.
Today food production is not the trigger for an agricultural crisis. Global
and local market volatility is the current bane. Global explosion in food
grain production has changed the market dynamics leading to pressure
prices on our produce. While produce prices are constantly under pressure,
costs are rising everyday thereby impacting farmer's incomes, debt
repayment capacity and their overall wellbeing. Making matters worse,
farmers bear the entire risk in the farm to market cycle. Be it outbreak of
pests at production or losses in storage & transport or price uncertainty
while marketing, the risk is not distributed evenly amongst other
stakeholders like grain traders, aggregators or processors.
Being an agricultural nation, our farmers deserve considerably more. To
create a more enabling environment addressing the following priorities will
form the core of any transformative reform agenda for agriculture in India:
1) Minimizing the risk for farmers and distributing it equitably across the
agro-value chain.
2) Ensuring a fair share of the value that is generated at the end consumer
level reaches the farmer.
What ails the Indian farmer:
Indian farmers require long term sustainable solutions instead of short
term rhetorical promises and reactive concessions. This process involves
recognizing and acting on the macro challenges listed below:
1. Weak Producer - Consumer Linkages: there is a disconnect amongst
what the Indian farmer produces and what the consumer demands. The
farmer is not connected to aggregators, food processors and retail chains to
help shape the nature of his produce. As a result, produce remains the same
annually, largely dependent on farmers and is often driven by the
government's MSP program.
2. Weak Supplier Power: The farmer is barely empowered as a
supplier. He continues to be small & marginal, inadequately resourced, ill-
informed on markets and marketing, ill-equipped to manage risk, burdened
with credit & debts and is dependent on traders to reach the buyers.
3. Overdependence on Agriculture: 60% of the Indian population
depends on agriculture for livelihood while contribution to the national
GDP through agriculture is only 14-15%. Clearly this is a recipe for
unsustainable development.
4. Technology Starved: The farmer is not equipped with the latest
technology nor trained to adopt it fast. Lack of new technology solutions
keeps the farmer from gaining an equal footing globally. Also, they have
little control over driving development and change due to the involvement
of multiple pressure groups such as environmentalists.
5. Commercial Agriculture vs Subsistence Agriculture: Policy
frameworks across different crops remain the same and do not enable any
significant impact. Whether they are basic food grains, pulses and oilseeds
that meet staple dietary requirements and food security needs of the
country or commercial crops like cotton, sugarcane, chilies that feed into
industries that produce consumable goods or even vegetables and fruits for
domestic consumption or export crops - the same broad stroke policy
measures are used across each segment.
6. Low investment in Research & Development: Less than 1% of
the Agricultural GDP in India is spent on research. That is abysmal
considering this sector is critical to food security of the country and
provides livelihood to 60% of our population.
Two of the most critical parameters of measuring and classifying ancient cities as ”developed
and advanced” are their irrigation and drainage systems. The question is how efficiently did
they bring water into the cities from water bodies and how did they manage to take the water
out from these cities. All great civilizations of the past were located in the vicinity of the
biggest rivers. If we take the same parameters and apply them to our cities then we would
realize how woeful the conditions of our cities and towns are.
None of India’s big cities are planned; rather most of the cities and towns in India are
unplanned ones. They got expanded based on the burgeoning population. Now, earth can be
divided into hard grounds and low lying areas. Low lying areas are preferred for cultivation
because of the ability of those lands to hold on to water. Hard grounds are preferred for
construction. As population grows, so does the need for land. We inadvertently started taking
up low lying lands for construction. Low lying lands have been getting inundated with water
for centuries or thousands of years. Hence, carrying out construction activities on them is
plain madness, even if mud is put on top of them and flattened out before doing the
construction work.
What is happening with the floods in Kerala is very simple. There are two reasons for the
flooding. If we look at the flood affected areas that are being broadcast on TV channels, it is
clear that water bodies, primarily rivers, have overflown. It looks like the river water is going
to continue this flow. But what this water encounters on its way are our towns and cities.
There is nowhere for water to go so it gets stuck. The bigger reason for the flooding are the
dams. News channels on Thursday were reporting that the Sholayar Dam in Tamil Nadu
became full so they opened its gates which in turn flooded the Mullaperiyar Dam, opening
which has caused the floods to worsen. This is clearly what environmental activists point at
when governments start proposals for construction of new dams. These dams store massive
quantities of water and hence when they flood, it’s majorly different from the case with
rivers.
A flooded
region in Kerala. Source: Kerala CMO Twitter
So where will all this water go? There are three ways. Flow out – which is not an option
anymore because it does not have anywhere to flow to. Otherwise, all the water has to be
evaporated by heat, which is not possible as it is the monsoons or all the water has to seep
into the earth, which is not possible as well as the base of these dams is tar and concrete,
which don’t easily absorb water. As a result, water will try to flow to the low lying areas as it
is used to doing so. But alas, we have occupied those places as well with construction,
making flooding inevitable. The same has been happening in Mumbai every year. The same
happened during the floods in Chennai. After having experienced three years of bleak
monsoons in Bangalore, in 2004, it rained one day and I was caught right in the middle of it.
The rain and wind were ferocious and in about two hours entire areas were flooded. There
was nowhere for the water to go. Add to it the incompetency of the corporation – drainage
system wasn’t cleaned and the rains had actually punctured holes on the roads. During the
flood in Chennai, my friend was telling me that water levels had risen to 7 ft and higher at
many places. Why is this happening? Simply because water has nowhere to go. The walls of
the Kochi airport have been brought down to drain out the water accumulated on the runway.
All of these are man-made constructions done without considering and caring about nature.
It would be ridiculous to blame the nature and the Gods for this disaster. I was taught in
school that Kerala and Cherapunji are the places which get the highest rainfall in India.
Monsoon seasons in Kerala have traditionally received moderate to extremely heavy rainfall
every year. The intensity has waxed and waned in the last decade or so. The process of water
evaporating and reaching the earth later as rain is one that plays the most critical role in
nurturing an ecosystem. It helps make our planet conducive for life forms to live and evolve.
No other living being goes against the rules of nature, especially disturbing and destroying
nature for its own needs. This is not nature’s wrath or God’s punishment, this is nature
following its rules and we are paying for coming in its way.
Nature has no empathy or compassion towards the inhabitants on this planet. The rule is
simple. Adhere to nature’s rules and ways, or you suffer. Nature has no sympathy for the
lives that are being lost in natural calamities. Animals and birds have their senses fine tuned
to nature so they know well in advance if a disaster is approaching. If floods are coming, they
instinctively move towards higher grounds. We are totally out of tune with nature. We are not
part of nature’s food chain, which is why our population has grown so much. In the name of
development, with zero planning and understanding of nature, we are on a collision course
with it.
Natural disasters for me are nature’s way of reminding us that though we have been able to
become the most dominant species on the planet, we can never become dominate nature. I
hope we realize it before it’s too late that when nature cannot handle anymore of the
destruction and imbalance we are causing it, it will go ahead and expunge us from its belly
just as we vomit out what our stomach cannot handle.
The recent havoc in Kerala that claimed more than 370 lives in the state and
damaged over thousand crores worth property, would have been averted if the
people had shown a little concern over the growing ecological imbalance in the
state.
Recorded as the worst flood of the century the intensity of the rains in the recent
monsoon in Kerala was more than the normal rainfall that the state receives every
year. The strong south-west monsoon which resulted in the torrential rains flooded
the lakes and rivers of the state.
But the destruction caused cannot be blamed entirely on the rains and the
submerged water bodies.
Ecologist Madhav Gadgil, who headed the Western Ghats Ecology Panel, had
suggested that several regions in Kerala which come under the Western Ghats
should be classified as ecologically sensitive areas.
Despite the recommendations, construction was allowed over the Western Ghats, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Western Ghats which act as Kerala's blanket could have prevented the strong
winds from flowing towards the state. Referring to the illegal construction on river
beds and the unauthorised stone quarrying, Gadgil also called the floods and
landslides in Kerala as a man-made disaster.
A media report quoted Gadgil as saying that the irresponsible environmental policy
is to be blamed for the recent floods and landslides in Kerala.
He also added that the rapid urbanisation which leads to encroachment over the
water bodies has impacted the natural penetration process of the land.
The Kochi airport which is constructed on the canal connecting the land and the
water body further obstructed the outflow of water. The land diverted to agriculture
in the state is also decreasing at an alarming rate. The paddy fields which would
once absorb water have now been converted into urban infrastructure.
A similar man-made flood had created a havoc in Chennai in 2015. Every year
during the monsoon season, most part of the country is submerged under water.
The inefficiency on the part of the government and the indifferent attitude of the
people have already done much harm to the country's ecological balance.
The situation has worsened to a level where we cannot restore the destruction done
to the society. All we can do is to just sit helplessly and pray that nature does not
inflict such intensity on us.
While we blame the nature's wrath behind such disasters, most such calamities are
caused due to the ever-growing human interference and ecological imbalance.
Over the past two decades, social media have gained so much growth and fame worldwide to an
extent that many researchers are now interested in learning more about these social platforms
and their effects on the community. Despite the fact that almost everyone in the community is
connected to at least one social media platform, the youth and teenagers are the leading and most
fanatic of these social platforms to the point that they even social network while in class or even
church. It is to this light that researchers have found that these social sites impact the lives of our
youth in a society a great deal in terms of morals, behavior and even education-wise.
The use of social media has both negative and positive impacts on our youths today. In this
paper, I aim to bring to light the impacts of social media specifically to the youth of this
generation. These impacts are both positive and negative.
The positive impacts of social media on the youth today include making them up date on the
events happening around the globe and also enables them network and stay connected with their
fellow youths and friends without physical meetings. It bridges the gap between friends since a
person say in Africa can network and interact with his or her friend in the United States. This in
turn helps in strengthening relationships say amongst classmates in high school or college, who
after finishing school, moved to different locations around the world. Additionally, youths can
create pages and groups in the social media platforms based on their professions, faith among
other dimensions of their lives and this leads to more connections being built and more
opportunities being opened for their respective disciplines. This can even lead to more
employment opportunities being created for the unemployed youths. From the many interviews
carried daily, youths say that social media platforms make their lives enjoyable, efficient and
easier and has also become their lifestyle.
Even though social media sites seem to connect more people and make them stay up to date, it
leads to isolation socially according to a BBC News report. It reduces the number of face-to-face
interactions amongst the youths because they normally spend most of their time on these online
social platforms. An evaluation from a number of studies done by various scientists show that
social isolation can cause a number of effects such as physical, emotional, mental and
psychological issues in these youths. This can in turn lead to depression, anxiety and many other
problems. It also leads to misspelling of words and misuse of words and tenses through the use of
short forms and abbreviations. This has a high negative impact more so on students because it
affects their language capabilities directly and this lead to poor grades in languages.
Also, it exposes young teens say below eighteen years to online predators who get to woo them
into sexual acts such as lesbianism and other general sexual misconducts. It also exposes these
teens to pornographic content being spread in some the social groups online. This in turn leads to
early pregnancies amongst young girls causing them to drop out of school. It also can lead to
contraction of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and this can lead to early deaths of our
young generation. The morals of these teens is also tampered with as they now get access to
immoral literature and videos.
Spending long hours chatting in social media sites also decreases productivity amongst the
youths. This in turn causes the youths not to be self-dependent and instead depend on their
parents and families for upkeep. The long hours wasted online on social media can be channeled
to productive activities that can enable one earn a living or even acquire an education for instance
through online tutorials and make good use of online research materials.
Social media also provides a good platform where cyber theft and bullying is done and this
increases the chances and incidences of identity theft. This has a number of risks to the youths as
their personal information can get stolen since it is stored in some locations they do not know
about or whose security is in not known or is questionable.
Social platforms also encourage the spread of wrong information and news majorly aimed at
tainting other peoples’ names or other groups of interest such as political or religious groups.
This in turn leads to fights and enmity between the concerned parties and this can lead to
divisions amongst tribes or people from different ethnicities and tribes.
It can also lead one to join groups of cults and illuminati people, which in turn can also lead to
frequent killings of people in society especially loved ones as a sacrifice to these cults.
In conclusion, social networking has been proved to have both positive and negative effects on
our youths. Individuals should make a conclusion whether to go on using the sites or stop or even
moderate on their usage. Parents should guide and advise their children on current matters like
the usage of social media and warn them of its negative impacts to them when misused or
overused. The education curriculum also should be revised so that it can include social media
studies in its disciplines so as to alert students that they need to be careful in their social media
usage.
Many people now get news from social media sites and networks and often it can be difficult to tell
whether stories are credible or not. Information overload and a general lack of understanding about how
the internet works by people has also contributed to an increase in fake news or hoax stories. Social media
sites can play a big part in increasing the reach of these type of stories.
1. Clickbait
These are stories that are deliberately fabricated to gain more website visitors and increase advertising
revenue for websites. Clickbait stories use sensationalist headlines to grab attention and drive click-
throughs to the publisher website, normally at the expense of truth or accuracy.
2. Propaganda
Stories that are created to deliberately mislead audiences, promote a biased point of view or particular
political cause or agenda.
3. Satire/Parody
Lots of websites and social media accounts publish fake news stories for entertainment and parody. For
example; The Onion, Waterford Whispers, The Daily Mash, etc.
4. Sloppy Journalism
Sometimes reporters or journalists may publish a story with unreliable information or without checking all
of the facts which can mislead audiences. For example, during the U.S. elections, fashion retailer Urban
Outfitters published an Election Day Guide, the guide contained incorrect information telling voters that
they needed a ‘voter registration card’. This is not required by any state in the U.S. for voting.
5. Misleading Headings
Stories that are not completely false can be distorted using misleading or sensationalist headlines. These
types of news can spread quickly on social media sites where only headlines and small snippets of the full
article are displayed on audience newsfeeds.
6. Biased/Slanted News
Many people are drawn to news or stories that confirm their own beliefs or biases and fake news can prey
on these biases. Social media news feeds tend to display news and articles that they think we will like
based on our personalised searches.
Overdraft and cash credit (OD/CC) accounts left out-of-order for more
than 90 days
Agricultural advances whose interest or principal installment payments
remain overdue for two crop/harvest seasons for short duration crops or
overdue one crop season for long duration crops
Bill overdue for more than 90 days for bills purchased and discounted
Expected payment is overdue for more than 90 days in respect of other
accounts
Non-submission of stock statements for 3 consecutive quarters in case
of cash-credit facility
No activity in the cash credit, overdraft, EPC, or PCFC account for more
than 91 days
Recovering Losses
Lenders generally have four options to recoup some or all losses resulting
from nonperforming assets. When companies struggle to service debt, lenders
take proactive steps to restructure loans to maintain cash flow and avoid
classifying loans as nonperforming. When defaulted loans
are collateralized by borrowers' assets, lenders can take possession of the
collateral and sell it to cover losses.
Lenders can also convert bad loans into equity, which may appreciate to the
point of full recovery of principal lost in the defaulted loan. When bonds are
converted to new equity shares, the value of the original shares is usually
eliminated. As a last resort, banks can sell bad debts at steep discounts to
companies that specialize in loan collections. Lenders typically sell defaulted
loans that are unsecured or when methods of recovery are not cost-effective.
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75. The presidency of Donald Trump
Donald J. Trump is the 45th President of the United States. He believes the
United States has incredible potential and will go on to exceed even its
remarkable achievements of the past. His campaign slogan for President was,
“Make America Great Again,” and that is exactly what he is doing.
Donald J. Trump defines the American success story. Throughout his life he has
continually set the standards of business and entrepreneurial excellence, especially
in real estate, sports, and entertainment. Mr. Trump built on his success in private
life when he entered into politics and public service. He remarkably won the
Presidency in his first ever run for any political office.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, Mr.
Trump followed in his father’s footsteps into the world of real estate development,
making his mark New York City. There, the Trump name soon became
synonymous with the most prestigious of addresses in Manhattan and,
subsequently, throughout the world.
Mr. Trump is also an accomplished author. He has written more than fourteen
bestsellers. His first book, The Art of the Deal, is considered a business classic.
Mr. Trump announced his candidacy for the Presidency on June 16, 2015. He then
accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States in July of
2016, having defeated seventeen other contenders during the Republican primaries.
On November 8, 2016, Mr. Trump was elected President in the largest Electoral
College landslide for a Republican in 28 years. Mr. Trump won more than 2,600
counties nationwide, the most since President Ronald Reagan in 1984. And he
received the votes of more than 62 million Americans, the most ever for a
Republican candidate. These voters, in delivering a truly national victory and
historic moment, rallied behind Mr. Trump’s commitment to rebuilding our
country and disrupting the political status quo that had failed to deliver results.
Mr. Trump won, in part, because he campaigned in places Republicans have had
difficulty winning—Flint, Michigan, charter schools in inner-city Cleveland, and
Hispanic churches in Florida. He went there because he wanted to bring his
message of economic empowerment to all Americans. Millions of new
Republicans trusted Mr. Trump with their vote because of his commitment to
delivering prosperity through a reformed tax code, an improved regulatory
environment, and better trade deals. President Trump’s victory has brought
Americans of all backgrounds together, and he is committed to delivering results
for the Nation every day he serves in office.
President Trump has been married to his wife, Melania, for twelve years, and they
are parents to their son, Barron. Mr. Trump also has four adult children, Don Jr.,
Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany, as well as nine grandchildren
On June 16th, 2016 Trump announced his candidacy for President of the United States
claiming he would be “the greatest jobs president God had ever created” in a speech that was
widely criticized for being discriminatory towards Mexicans. Initially, Trump was considered
a long shot to secure the Republican nomination. However, Trump’s mantra of “Make
America Great Again” struck a chord with Republican voters and by the end of the
Republican primary process Trump had secured the nomination by a significant margin.
Trump’s image as the defiant underdog continued into his election faceoff with Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton. Polling numbers the day before the election showed the majority of
sources reporting that a Clinton victory was imminent. However, the unpredictable Trump
stood victorious at the end of election night by securing 290 Electoral College votes to
Clinton’s 232.
After frequently citing how good his relationship with Russian president Vladmir Putin
would be if he became the president, reports surfaced of possible Russian interference in the
Democratic campaign for the presidency. Then President-Elect Donald Trump came under
fire with the media and members of the public calling for an official probe into the
relationship with Russia. By early March, nearly two thirds of the public believed a special
prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the issue.
The media coverage of Trump’s inauguration became more concerned with the size of the
crowd than the inauguration itself, particularly after the newly elected President claimed the
media was engaging in false reporting. In regards to domestic television viewership, the event
was seen by slightly less people than Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
As if to ensure the controversial fanfare of his inauguration, on January 27th, 2017, Trump
signed an executive order establishing travel bans for nationals of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,
Somalia, Yemen, Iran and Sudan. The ban conjured criticism from around the world with the
travel ban becoming informally referred to as “the Muslim ban” due to the predominantly
Muslim population bases of the banned countries. Domestically, the travel ban brought
disgust among liberals with a majority of those believing that the intention of the ban was to ban
Muslims from entering the United States. The executive order was eventually blocked by
rulings in a federal court. Although Trump attempted to push through a revised addition of
the order, it remained blocked with judges extending the review period on March 29th.
Marred by the controversy of his apparent backroom communications with Russian officials,
General Michael Flynn – Trump’s national security adviser – became the first political
casualty of the Trump administration. However, the removal of Flynn did not provide
reprieve for the remainder of Trump’s appointees. A March 2017 survey showed over one
third of the public strongly disapproved of a number of appointees including Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos.
In characteristic fashion, the Trump administration challenged the norms of D.C. further by
employing Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump in an official White House role. At the time, 41
percent of Americans strongly opposed her named an official employee of the White House. This
frustration was instigated by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Ivanka’s
husband, being made senior advisor to the President.